Everyday Life

A little over a year ago, I moved 230 miles south from Lincoln, NE to Wichita, KS. It’s not a huge distance. It can be traveled in just more than four hours by car. But it’s the difference between expecting regular snowfall during the winter and not. It’s the difference between experiencing accumulation and not.

Wichita rarely gets snow–and when it does, it generally disappears within 24 hours.

Except for the past two winters. Last year, Wichita had enough snow that they cancelled school for a week.

At first, I, like a whole host of northerners, scoffed at what I considered to be unnecessary closures. But a year of living in Wichita has convinced me that a little snow in Southern climes really IS worth freaking out about.

Do you doubt me?

If you’re from Nebraska or South Dakota or Minnesota, you probably do. But let me make my case.

You’ve heard some from the south talk about how their road maintenance crews are ill-equipped for any amount of snow. This is true in many places–Wichita has snowplows and salt stores, but many more southerly locations do not.

But I feel that the reason a little snow is worth freaking out about has to do with another sort of resource: human resources.

The fact is, southern drivers haven’t driven in snow. They don’t know what they should or shouldn’t be doing. They don’t have the knowledge or the experience to safely handle even small amounts of snow.

In Nebraska, there were three types of unsafe winter drivers: the kids who’d never driven on ice before, the new SUV owners who were overconfident because of their vehicles, and the old women who were roadhogs.

In Wichita, there is only one type of unsafe winter drivers: everyone.

Because no one knows how to drive in snow.

This isn’t their fault. It’s not that they’re bad drivers (although many of them are, unfortunately). It’s just that they have neither the education nor the experience to drive in snow appropriately.

They’re terrified, so they drive far more slowly than the weather merits. They can’t see well, so they drive far more closely together than is safe. They start sliding, so they slam on their brakes. They slide more and it’s slow-mo bumper cars.

The few who do know how to drive in snow (maybe they moved down from Nebraska?) don’t have much recourse except to drive slowly but with adequate distance between cars. The roads are too clogged with slow-driving citizens to let them practice their safe-snow-driving skills.

So what is a southern city to do?

I recommend that they freak out.

Close schools. Let people work from home. Only have essential employees come in.

Keep people off the roads so that the only people on them are those who either have to be or who know how to safely drive on them.

Short of transplanting every resident to a norther clime for a winter and having them practice driving with a native, I think that freaking out is the most reasonable option.

My Grandma lived in Bellevue, Nebraska–home of the gigantic Offutt Air Force base and suburb to Omaha. Omaha-Bellevue was the Big City.

We traveled there at least a half dozen times a year, for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas and for each cluster of birthdays (January, March, July, and October). A couple times a year we’d make the trip from Grandma’s house to Omaha’s famous Henry Dorley Zoo (or Henry Dorky, as we called it.)

The trip between Grandma’s and the Zoo (“Goin’ to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo, Zoo, the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo, Zoo–beeps and bomps and squeaks and squanks” we’d sing) was fast, on one or the other of the interstate highways running through and across and around Omaha.

But every time we came to a certain juncture, where two or three of those massive interstates met, I’d stop my singing and wonder at the “bridges”.

There were dozens of them, it seemed to me, curving and crossing one another. It was a jumble of engineering, one concrete structure arcing above the next. It was strangely exhilarating–and scary, at the same time. Drivers on the bottom road could have not one but three or four different cars atop them. Drivers on the top could look down and see dozens or even hundreds of cars driving their different directions.

It was wonderful.

I thought of the bridges this morning, as I arced across multiple off ramps getting onto Kellogg from I-135 after taking Daniel to work for a 6 am conference call with France.

Will my children wonder at the “bridges” as I did?

Or will they be calloused city-dwellers, inured to the wonders of human engineering, the miracle of layering human upon human driving at inhuman speeds?

It seems I write in fits and bursts, just like I live the rest of my life.

I have a fit of kitchen zeal and my dishes get (almost) caught up, four dozen Runzas are packed away in the freezer, the load of cookie dough Daniel bought from a child is baked, and the fridge abounds with homemade yogurt. Above the fridge, an old Tupperware is full of homemade granola and two Pyrex with roasted chickpea snacks.

A fit of reading (on a trip, usually) has me writing reviews and book notes.

A fit of exercising means I walk to Braums for milk, to a friend’s house to drop off my husband for breakfast (yes, totally unnecessary, since he could have walked or driven himself–but still), to the library to drop off a book and get some more.

And then come the bursts.

I collapse on the couch after work, crying until my husband orders me into the bathtub to relax.

I burst into tears unprovoked and stare unseeingly at the wall, unable to contain my emotion.

I start the day crying and thank God that I have some time charting between clients because I need the moments for more fits of crying.

I just start to feel that things are getting better–that I’m making friends and finding my place. I just start to feel that I’m establishing routines and doing okay. I just start to feel that I’ve figured out how to be a wife and a woman at the same time.

And then the bubble bursts and I’m back in a fit.

I cry and cry.

I can’t see outside the moment, outside the days, the weeks of difficulty.

When does it get easy? I wonder. Will it ever?

When will I get out from under the cloud I’m living in? When will I gain perspective? When will I cease to be at the whim of these fits and bursts?

I despair.

I think I need help.

I tell myself that help is more trouble than it’s worth.

I don’t want to spend money for help. I want to pay down our debt so we can have a baby.

I want to help myself. I check out books from the library. Books on sleeping better, on overcoming depression, on managing the TMD related headaches. I don’t read them because the burst of energy to complete them never comes.

Daniel wants to help me, asks how he can help–but I don’t know how. I wish I did. I wish I knew what caused these fits, these crying jags, this persistent, lingering melancholy. We work our way through what we know, but we know so little.

What am I to do when the thunderstorm breaks and I find myself bawling in my office, unable to see any way out?

The Bubblicious bubble gum with its bright pink wrapper and bubble letters was too great a temptation.

I grabbed it from the supermarket checkout line, hid it in my pocket.

Mom discovered my theft before we made it to the car. She turned around, marched me back into the store where I was to return the item, apologize, and pay for it.

The shop lady was nice, trying to be kind.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“No, it is NOT okay,” my mother replied.

It was an offense, a punishable offense. Shoplifting, theft. Whatever you call it, it’s a crime. It’s not okay.

I think of my childhood shoplifting when a mortified child returns to my room with a plastic carrot in hand.

“I’m sorry I took your carrot,” says the mouth hidden in her chest.

I resist the urge to tell her that it’s okay.

It isn’t okay.

I tell her I forgive her. I thank her for returning it.

I’m glad there are still mothers like mine, who agree that it’s not okay.

There is hope yet for this next generation–some kids are still learning not to steal, some kids are still learning to confess their wrongdoings.

And I will do my part. I will condemn the behavior and give grace to the child. I will offer forgiveness without sweeping sin under the rug.

Inasmuch as I can, I will help these children learn law AND grace.