Storm

There was an epic battle between winter and spring yesterday, and if I knew which Gods were responsible, I would tell you. Perhaps Old Man Winter and the Goddess of Spring? Maybe in disagreement about when one was to leave and the other to arrive? My vernacular is science-based. But what I experienced was full of impressive power and something ancient. I feel like those nameless Gods are surprised to hear me calling them to attention. Wake up!

It was a spectacular weather temper tantrum that lasted 30 minutes, arriving around 7:30pm. The westerly sun lights the tree trunks with Impressionist light every evening, so we religiously watch what we call "TV" out the picture window looking down to Gunsten Lake each night. Me in the wood rocker, he in the sliding rocker, our feet on the trunk that sits under the picture window. Wine in hand. That's our evening work schedule. 

I looked over my shoulder to the western windows to see the entire sky to the northwest filled with billowing, low clouds. Not the deep gray of thunderstorms, but the lighter gray of wall of snow approaching. Within just a few moments, the warm May sunshine we'd been admiring from our rocking chairs gave way. 

A gust hit our hill like ammunition going off, the wind shaking loose all sorts of debris in the pines above us. The cabin's metal roof pinged and banged. The pines leaned, then bent. I watched a 150-foot tree move more like a fluid than a solid. 

Strangely, just an hour earlier, I shared with Greg my anxiousness about the big storms that have hit the Arrowhead with increasing frequency. There was the floods of 2012, when we had 12-inches of never-ending rain and my friend Jane's house tried to float. I was in Ely during the 1999 Blowdown, and smack in the middle of a derecho that slammed Duluth in July 2016. I've experienced 10 minutes in hurricane force winds, and can't ever forget the the unending lightening of July 4, 1999. I'm a climate change believer, having been there for a few 1-in-1000 year storms now. 

Funny thing: During the Duluth derecho, I noticed deep booms amid the screaming storm. Later, I realized the booms to be our 100-year-old silver maples hitting the ground, ripped out with 8-foot tall root balls in tow. It took me weeks to chainsaw my way through that storm's leftovers. Nine days without electricity. The storm was terrifying, and the weeks of recovery surreal. That's me, below, on Day 2.

My son Charles was a BWCA canoe guide for two years, and I worried more about him there than when he lead packing trips in Yellowstone among the bears. Since the 1999 Blowdown, there have been more of these over-the-top storms with fatalities up here in the Border Country. The grizzlies of Yellowstone haven't been nearly as deadly.

Hence, I am storm-adverse these days. Which I am really struggling with, because I'm a person who historically LOVES thunderstorms. I don't like this new me, watching the summer weather systems with an unwelcome vigilance rather than giddy craving. I'm not a coward, but I might have some sort of severe weather PTSD. 

I no sooner I confide my fear to Greg than the trees bend spectacularly before my eyes. I watched anxiously, my eyes dashing between my favorite old trees to the west, the east and the south. I tried to enjoy it the way Greg did, because he had "an awesome National Geographic moment!" He was still talking about it this morning while we drank our coffee in front of the picture window. I enjoyed it the way I do rollercoasters these days--a necessary and thrilling event for which I am grateful when it ends. 

But let me tell you about the snow! I don't know the names of the snow any more than the names of the Gods, although I have been told the Inuit have many words for snow. I just have snow, and I feel a bit of resentment about that, because it robs me of the ability to describe what I know to be factual. I've been in northern Minnesota long enough to have some things to say about snow.

I can tell you that there were four distinct kinds of frozen precipitation, each with it's own density and sound, which I can speak to since I kept going outside to inspect the evidence. First there was a wet snow drop that fell like rain but whizzed through the air as a white dash. Then came balls of snow-ice that came pelting down from the sky like giant handfuls of frozen peas. This was followed by confetti snow that made it feel as if we were in a snow globe, and we both said it made us happy to see this snow, even in May. I suppose it reminds us of the wistfully of happy holiday feelings. Lastly, there were fat flake wads that fell like wet crepe paper, plopping into wet piles upon impact.   

The ground melted the snow in minutes, so we did not suffer any long-term snow punishment. In fact, the sky returned to blue and the lake became glass, all before dark. 

Spring holds the talking stick. But the loons and spring peepers do all the talking.