Spring Break Trip 2015: Birmingham, AL

I am quick to lament that I never made the right decisions in college where spring break was concerned. I ignored the compact that every coed is under to spend at least one week of your four years on a beach being responsible with everything but one's SPF lotion. But noooo. I had to outdork myself so hard that one year I even went NORTH. North from Meadville, Pennsylvania. I spent spring break in Buffalo, the winter depression capital of the free world. Adding insult to injury, the boy with whom I was in an ill-advised relationship broke up with me on that spring break service trip to Buffalo. My colleague said the name of that story is Rebuffed in Buffalo. An accurate title indeed.

Anyway. Rebuffed on this spring break trip I would not be!  Our southern voyage took us this time to Birmingham which is truly a diamond in the rough where university towns go. They don't quite have bike lanes yet but they do have a Trader Joe's coming soon. Birmingham is on the rise, y'all.

A highlight of the trip was seeing the rad rainbow accent work on some of the bridge underpasses. I'm sure there is more of a story of this urban art concept but the story our kids will tell you is that their gypsy hippie parents made them put on clothes at 10 p.m. to go run amok under the rainbow lights in Birmingham during a rainy evening in March.

Behold, the rainbow tunnels of splendor.

Humans of Tennessee: Snow Day Edition

I know how ridiculous this outfit looks but it's actually a mosaic of all the places I have lived. Starting with the hat, which my old man calls a "stockin' cap,"--I bought this at a high school football game for, like, $4. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and my grandfathers, dad, some of my uncles went to this high school for boys. St. Ignatius is a real Cleveland institution, but I used to call it St. Ego-natius because every guy who went there thought he was God's gift to the girls at my all-girls high school. I'm pretty sure I was bitter because I was a super homely kid that no one ever invited to a dance. Anyway. The gray coat I bought at T.J. Maxx when I was pregnant with my son and my other winter coat no longer fit. I literally bought it, put it on, and stuffed the other one in the Goodwill bin on my way to pick up my daughter at daycare.The mis-matching gloves are from the rag bag in our family closet. I gave the matching ones to my kids who are off school today. My favorite part of this outfit is the Carhartt overalls, which my old man bought for me for my birthday at the Boot Box in Meadville, Pennsylvania. So many good memories in these overalls. I went to college in Meadville and this is where I first really fell in love with the outdoors. Many of my friends were environmental studies majors and they were always going backpacking or rockclimbing. One of these friends, Jeff, told me the first time I wore the Carhartts that they were a disgrace and I needed to drag them behind a truck and get them weathered. I still laugh about that because the next time I wore the Carhartts was on a camping trip with my boyfriend. We got utterly lost and had to sleep on the forest floor without a match between us. It was freezing and we could have lost limbs. But I married him anyway.

Seven feet of invisible snow in New England

The snow was so high and stiffly packed that winter; it was impossible to trudge home from the train without collecting snowflake souvenirs in my boots every night. It was my first full year of living in Boston and the winter was kicking my tail. The sun was still setting at some obscenely early hour, and I was a desk jockey pulling long hours for little pay, so I basically never saw the sun or my boyfriend or my friends. Color me depressed. I remember looking up and seeing a sign posted on a telephone pole that someone had Sharpied in black:

I'LL PAY YOU $10 TO DIG OUT MY CAR

I remember thinking how much would be reasonable to charge for someone to dig me out of my McJob life, to be perfectly dramatic.

*** My Boston comrades are still digging out of seven feet of snow. As is their trolley/subway system. New Englanders are bandying about phrases like "ice dam" which should only ever refer to a slip-n'-slide for penguins in the Arctic Circle. Their cabin fevers are spiking to epic highs. I mean--have you SEEN it up there? The whole situation is terribly unfair.

North of Boston right now. (@ruslodi) pic.twitter.com/tp5zaBYGun

— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

*** We agree, you and I, don't we? That the Nor-easters that keep dumping more snow on an already bewildered geography really smack of injustice and horror? We see the pictures of (or we experience firsthand) the shoveling and the roof-clearing and the endless headaches of commuting and we all are very much of one accord: That's painful stuff. Nobody deserves that. I'm really sorry.

I'm guessing that neighborliness increases in these times, too. There's a sort of camaraderie to picking up the shovels and knowing we're all in this Us v. Winter thing together.

But we all know that eventually winter ends. The snow melts. The swan boats emerge in the Public Gardens once more. The solution to the winter problem is the reliability of the earth orbiting as it should around the sun.

*** I have to remind myself that the private pains people carry are very much like the seven feet of snow, only invisible. I have friends dealing with diabetes, cancer, the grief of losing a parent. I have students who are hungry, lonely, hyper-anxious. My husband treats clients whose secrets could ruin lives--are ruining lives. They are buried under heavy blankets of snow. The meteorologists can't forecast what's ahead. They are not sure when this winter will end.

***

I've lived through my share of winters, literal and figurative, and the invisible winters are always harder to weather.  Friends, if you need someone to help you dig out, I hope someone you trust can be there. If you call me, I'll probably send you links to cat videos on Youtube, but at least you'll know you are loved and you can keep the $10.