The other odyssey at the end of the holidays was a visit to the cabin in the UP of Michigan, which had been vaguely promised to my son with the possibility in my mind, as there always is, that the day would never come. Ah, but it came. It is not the 'being there' that is rough, but the preparation and the getting there that are, especially in winter when huge snows and freak blizzards make for all kinds of necessary preparations. The point of the trip, if you are familiar with deep snow, was to go snowmobiling, for often any other kind of mobility there is nearly impossible. There is skiing, of course, and snow shoes, if you have a workable pair, which I do not; but for a young guy, such things are slow and boring. You go for the nerve-shattering roar of the machine and its chilling speeds, people zipping along at 80 mph where cars, if it is a road, would be careening off the sides. I have long since concluded that snowmobilers, including my son, are nuts. But a promise is a promise, and last Wednesday began the tiresome routine of stacking up the necessary stuff for the trip.
The trail to the cabin is located 4 miles from a plowed road, and the trail itself is another half mile in from there. The 4 mile stretch is maintained for snowmobiles, but that last half mile is always in doubt. As the nearest town is 20 miles of snowmobile trails away, one has to take everything one needs, or small to great inconveniences will occur. There must be food, of course; snowmobiles safely fastened for the 330 mile ride up; skiis, for fun (and just in case - skiis don't run out of gas or shoot a spark plug); all the cloths necessary; extra gas, emergency tools, money; and a good book and cards for the long nights. All these were checked and assembled Wednesday night, but there are always the stray incidentals that can be important: flashlights, snow pants, extra wool socks, butter, all those things that can make or break such a trip.
And so, all day Wednesday and into Thursday morning something would pop into my head that I had forgotten. One such thing occurred as I wrote a blog Wednesday afternoon - a snow shovel. Yes! I thought, and wrote it down somewhere, but by the time I went downstairs I had forgotten, and when I went back to find where I had written it, that writing had been taken, apparently, by elves. When I made the last addition to the blog that evening, it came back to me: snow shovel! I mentioned my triumph to my wife later and she said, "but we have one up there." Yes, I said, but it's a bad, broken old aluminum one and it's under the cabin - maybe buried beneath drifts (on reflection, a pretty bad place to keep a snow shovel with winter coming, but there was little time to reflect then). My triumph of memory clear, I added it to my list of "must haves" that was kept securely at my reading table downstairs. Thursday morning came and I reviewed the list, adding things to the bags that had been filled with food. Of course I could not put a snow shovel in a bag, and so I stamped the need into my mind so that I would not forget.
Thus infallibly armed, we loaded our needs into the Jeep, then backed the car up to the trailer, to spend half an hour lashing the snowmobiles down for the long trip with "new, improved" tie-downs that still, we were to find out, needed some improvement. Once done, I declared that we were ready and began to open the door to the drivers seat, only to look around for some reason and see, just lying there besides the snowed-under basketball hoop, a snow shovel. I had forgotten again, but the fates, or my guardian angel or just plain clear magic had set up the snow shovel where I could not forget it. It was a small, plastic job that I could not remember seeing before, and it looked perfect for the ride in. Finally and fully packed (I thought - there would still be things forgotten, as always) we took off, over an hour late.
Leaving an hour late meant something, for it gets dark around 4:30, and with the new estimations, I figured we would get at our final stop around 5. Damn - but maybe there would be enough clearing in the night sky to let in the moon. We were going regardless. I knew that it would be just as I had feared it would be - a late afternoon packing in the final plowed parking area, in the dark with frozen hands without gloves that would be needed for the intricacies of tying and untying, and then a dash in the cold to the cabin, where we would wait, shivering, for an hour or so for the wood stove to warm the place up.
And so it was, exactly as I figured, at least up to the cabin trail. Finally, with a faint moon helping, we managed to pack up the sled and lash it down, our fingers frozen, and were just about to go, when I saw with a last look inside the car the snow shovel - which I had forgotten again, and which now seemed to be singing "don't forget me!" There, I said to Jeff as I pulled it out, the shovel has reminded me again. Must be my guardian angel!
Four miles later we arrived at the approximate area of the trail to the cabin, but the snow was so incredibly deep, and the light so faint, that it took us several passes before we discerned the slight opening in the pine forest. As I was pulling the sled with our stuff, Jeff lunged off the snowmobile trail onto the cabin trail - only to be buried almost immediately in 4 feet of powder.
We knew the snow was deep - it almost always is up there this time of year - but we did not know that it was all powder. Usually, there is a several foot base and only a foot or so of powder, something a snowmobile can handle. It cannot handle four feet of powder. Stuck and with a half mile to go, there was only one solution - get out the shovel!
As it turned out, it took seven or eight dig-outs to finally make the half mile, taking us an hour and a half to do so. We would never, ever have made it without the shovel. Once at the cabin, wet and cold, we had to shovel out the steps, and then the long path to the outhouse, an almost impossible walk in 4 feet of powder, and especially grueling if you really had to go. The next morning, we had to shovel out behind the cabin to get a rotary exit (our crafts are old and have no reverse), an area which was deeper still with the slide-off from the roof. Five minutes after we had finished, the last of the snow slid off the roof and filled in what had taken us a half hour to clear. We cleared it again.
With the snow now packed on our trail, we did not need the shovel again - until we got back to the car for our return. It had snowed five inches the day before, but not before letting down a coat of freezing rain. It would have been grueling work to clear off the car and the trailer were it not for our trusty shovel, which, being plastic, could be used safely on the car.
Saved, saved, saved by a shovel that refused to be forgotten. One might think that its need was embedded in the top layer of my subconscious (however that spatial metaphor works in the real mind), surfacing again and again to remind the stupid, conscious level, and that indeed is probably true. But I had gone up without a shovel before and had never had the need to use it before the cabin was reached. I was also reminded of it just before we left by its actual presence at my elbow, even though I had not put it there or had noticed it until the final moment. In my understanding, the presence of the shovel went beyond normal expectations. Was it indeed the work of an angel, as I had joked to Jeff? Was it the work of a super-conscious that rose beyond space and time and simply knew? Or are both the same, the angel being the humanized vision of the super-conscious? And if this is the case, are we then not all metaphors ourselves for a greater super-conscious that has split for its own reasons into multiple, semi-conscious units?
The shovel's not talking; all it knows is that it had to be there, and that's all it needed to know. Just as we are, perhaps - that we only need to know - or are allowed to know - what is necessary for our part in the great plan of existence. Why it is that this boundary is sometimes crossed is hard to say, but the shovel, regardless, would have its due. For the bit part it had to play, it would use whatever means necessary to be there. It is of such needs that miracles are made, both great and small. FK
The trail to the cabin is located 4 miles from a plowed road, and the trail itself is another half mile in from there. The 4 mile stretch is maintained for snowmobiles, but that last half mile is always in doubt. As the nearest town is 20 miles of snowmobile trails away, one has to take everything one needs, or small to great inconveniences will occur. There must be food, of course; snowmobiles safely fastened for the 330 mile ride up; skiis, for fun (and just in case - skiis don't run out of gas or shoot a spark plug); all the cloths necessary; extra gas, emergency tools, money; and a good book and cards for the long nights. All these were checked and assembled Wednesday night, but there are always the stray incidentals that can be important: flashlights, snow pants, extra wool socks, butter, all those things that can make or break such a trip.
And so, all day Wednesday and into Thursday morning something would pop into my head that I had forgotten. One such thing occurred as I wrote a blog Wednesday afternoon - a snow shovel. Yes! I thought, and wrote it down somewhere, but by the time I went downstairs I had forgotten, and when I went back to find where I had written it, that writing had been taken, apparently, by elves. When I made the last addition to the blog that evening, it came back to me: snow shovel! I mentioned my triumph to my wife later and she said, "but we have one up there." Yes, I said, but it's a bad, broken old aluminum one and it's under the cabin - maybe buried beneath drifts (on reflection, a pretty bad place to keep a snow shovel with winter coming, but there was little time to reflect then). My triumph of memory clear, I added it to my list of "must haves" that was kept securely at my reading table downstairs. Thursday morning came and I reviewed the list, adding things to the bags that had been filled with food. Of course I could not put a snow shovel in a bag, and so I stamped the need into my mind so that I would not forget.
Thus infallibly armed, we loaded our needs into the Jeep, then backed the car up to the trailer, to spend half an hour lashing the snowmobiles down for the long trip with "new, improved" tie-downs that still, we were to find out, needed some improvement. Once done, I declared that we were ready and began to open the door to the drivers seat, only to look around for some reason and see, just lying there besides the snowed-under basketball hoop, a snow shovel. I had forgotten again, but the fates, or my guardian angel or just plain clear magic had set up the snow shovel where I could not forget it. It was a small, plastic job that I could not remember seeing before, and it looked perfect for the ride in. Finally and fully packed (I thought - there would still be things forgotten, as always) we took off, over an hour late.
Leaving an hour late meant something, for it gets dark around 4:30, and with the new estimations, I figured we would get at our final stop around 5. Damn - but maybe there would be enough clearing in the night sky to let in the moon. We were going regardless. I knew that it would be just as I had feared it would be - a late afternoon packing in the final plowed parking area, in the dark with frozen hands without gloves that would be needed for the intricacies of tying and untying, and then a dash in the cold to the cabin, where we would wait, shivering, for an hour or so for the wood stove to warm the place up.
And so it was, exactly as I figured, at least up to the cabin trail. Finally, with a faint moon helping, we managed to pack up the sled and lash it down, our fingers frozen, and were just about to go, when I saw with a last look inside the car the snow shovel - which I had forgotten again, and which now seemed to be singing "don't forget me!" There, I said to Jeff as I pulled it out, the shovel has reminded me again. Must be my guardian angel!
Four miles later we arrived at the approximate area of the trail to the cabin, but the snow was so incredibly deep, and the light so faint, that it took us several passes before we discerned the slight opening in the pine forest. As I was pulling the sled with our stuff, Jeff lunged off the snowmobile trail onto the cabin trail - only to be buried almost immediately in 4 feet of powder.
We knew the snow was deep - it almost always is up there this time of year - but we did not know that it was all powder. Usually, there is a several foot base and only a foot or so of powder, something a snowmobile can handle. It cannot handle four feet of powder. Stuck and with a half mile to go, there was only one solution - get out the shovel!
As it turned out, it took seven or eight dig-outs to finally make the half mile, taking us an hour and a half to do so. We would never, ever have made it without the shovel. Once at the cabin, wet and cold, we had to shovel out the steps, and then the long path to the outhouse, an almost impossible walk in 4 feet of powder, and especially grueling if you really had to go. The next morning, we had to shovel out behind the cabin to get a rotary exit (our crafts are old and have no reverse), an area which was deeper still with the slide-off from the roof. Five minutes after we had finished, the last of the snow slid off the roof and filled in what had taken us a half hour to clear. We cleared it again.
With the snow now packed on our trail, we did not need the shovel again - until we got back to the car for our return. It had snowed five inches the day before, but not before letting down a coat of freezing rain. It would have been grueling work to clear off the car and the trailer were it not for our trusty shovel, which, being plastic, could be used safely on the car.
Saved, saved, saved by a shovel that refused to be forgotten. One might think that its need was embedded in the top layer of my subconscious (however that spatial metaphor works in the real mind), surfacing again and again to remind the stupid, conscious level, and that indeed is probably true. But I had gone up without a shovel before and had never had the need to use it before the cabin was reached. I was also reminded of it just before we left by its actual presence at my elbow, even though I had not put it there or had noticed it until the final moment. In my understanding, the presence of the shovel went beyond normal expectations. Was it indeed the work of an angel, as I had joked to Jeff? Was it the work of a super-conscious that rose beyond space and time and simply knew? Or are both the same, the angel being the humanized vision of the super-conscious? And if this is the case, are we then not all metaphors ourselves for a greater super-conscious that has split for its own reasons into multiple, semi-conscious units?
The shovel's not talking; all it knows is that it had to be there, and that's all it needed to know. Just as we are, perhaps - that we only need to know - or are allowed to know - what is necessary for our part in the great plan of existence. Why it is that this boundary is sometimes crossed is hard to say, but the shovel, regardless, would have its due. For the bit part it had to play, it would use whatever means necessary to be there. It is of such needs that miracles are made, both great and small. FK
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