“Let’s go for a hike in the snow!” I enthusiastically tell my girls one February morning in 2021. Opening the coat closet, I toss snowsuits onto the ground and urge them to bundle up. I button my snow pants. Zip up my coat. Grab the warmest hats we own, placing one on my head and throwing one to each of the girls. I help them get their gloves on before shoving my hands in David’s heavy-duty snow mittens.
“Don’t forget a mask, in case we meet someone in the woods!” It feels odd that this has become a normal thing to say, but having something over our face has been nice protection from the cold and biting wind. A silver lining of the outdoor mask mandate, I suppose.
“Can you help me get these things on?” I say to David, as we walk out the door. I found a practically brand new pair of TSL Symbioz Elite snowshoes at the thrift store last week and the freshly fallen snow is enticing me to try them out. With my thrifted snowshoes in hand, I climb down the stairs of our front stoop. “I have no idea how to even work these things.” I titter, turning my head to look at him behind me.
He laughs, smiling encouragingly. “You just put them on, and then you walk on the snow. Like magic.” He straps me in, shoving my foot harder than I’d like, but promising it will make the walk easier. He bids us goodbye and heads back inside to his newly designed basement office.
I pivot towards the girls, who are making snow angels in our front yard, eagerly awaiting the adventure that lies before us. “Okay, which way do we go?” They point to the path that veers to the right, towards the service road, and I lead the way. David was right; it’s awfully easy to walk on the snow in my super fancy snowshoes. Walking on a foot of snow feels a little like walking on clouds.
We take a hundred steps before stopping for the first picture. The trees are blanketed in white. The plow hasn’t been up the service road yet, so it’s nothing but a huge white field, just waiting to be trampled on. A blank canvas waiting for its footprints and snow angels.
It takes an inordinate amount of time to get just to the edge of the forest. There’s so much beauty, too many photos to capture, too many shots to take. Eden starts to fidget. “Come ON! She says. I want to make it to the pond!”
We get to the trail and I stop in awe. “I have never seen anything quite like this - ever, in my whole entire life.” I look from left to right, soaking in the snow capped trees and the sun’s reflection, making the snow whiter than white. “This is just magical.” I say out loud to myself. I inhale deeply, the smell of winter filling my lungs. Autumn stops beside me and reaches her arms out wide, as if inviting the world into a hug. I continue my musings: “It’s stunning. It’s enchanted. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
She responds in a whispery voice. “I don’t even recognize this forest. It looks like a whole new world!” Together, we marvel over nature’s beauty for a few seconds before Eden yells at us to keep moving. Making our way through the forest, we stop occasionally to take slow-motion videos as Eden shakes the tree branches heavy with snow. The morning’s snowy stillness brings us all a sense of peace and curiosity.
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I never saw snow growing up. At least not more than an occasional inch. When I left for college in the midwest, my mom bought me extra layers and good boots to keep me warm. I remember the first time I walked to class in the snow. Staring at the snowflakes as they landed on my gloves, I was enamored by their shape; stunned that every snowflake was unique. I would investigate them on my dark colored mittens as I walked on the sidewalk, not caring that people stared at me as they drove by. I imagine they wondered what in the world I found so interesting about my gloves.
But as enamored as I was, I never really fell in love with snow back then. It was too cold. Too wet. I’d rather cozy up by the fire and read a good book. Or write a paper. Even back then I loved writing papers; reading and writing were my favorite things to do.
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Four years ago, a friend asked me to join a nature club. Desperate for friends, and wanting to make sure my kids had friends too, I said yes without even thinking about what being in a nature club meant. We hiked once a week with ten kids in tow between the ages of newborn and seven.
I mostly hated it.
I didn’t love being outside. I didn’t love hiking. I didn’t love hearing kids whine about how tired or hungry they were.
When it came time to discuss whether or not we would continue with Nature Club in the fall, I said no thanks. I didn’t want to hike every day. I didn’t want to have to put in the work to get my kids out the door. Packing snacks, and gear, and water, and good attitudes felt like too much to do once a week. I was not an outdoor mom. I didn’t want to be an outdoor mom. I wanted my kids to be outdoor kids without me having to be an outdoor mom. Can’t we just send them out to play while we sit inside and drink tea and talk about books? PUH-LEEZE?!
My friends let me off the hook. We agreed to do indoor activities twice a month and nature days twice a month. It felt like a good compromise. Until winter came.
One scheduled hiking day, there was snow in the forecast. Because we were hiking close by, we decided to hike anyway. If the weather turned bad, we’d head to someone’s house and let the kids play indoors the rest of the time. While my kids were excited to hike with friends no matter the weather, I begrudgingly put on my layers, grabbed my favorite hat and boots, and headed out the door. We had been told our backyard connected with the trails we were to hike that day, but we never took time to explore the map and figure out how they connected to our yard, so we drove a mile down the road and parked on the street.
We were barely even on the trail before the snow started falling. Pulling my hood up over my beanie, I tried to grin and bear it, while sending a snarky text message and picture to my best friend who, like me, preferred to stay indoors by the fire.
Somewhere in the middle of that snowy hike four years ago, I began to fall in love. I just didn’t know it yet.
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It wasn’t until Covid hit that I began to nurture my love affair with nature. The date is different for everyone, depending on where you lived at the time. For us, the world began to change on March 13, 2020.
In the blink of an eye, libraries closed. The girls’ activities were canceled. Church went virtual. David began working from home every day, instead of just two days a week. With all four of us in the house all day every day, and emotions and anxiety at an all-time high, we were desperate to find a way to release some energy.
The weather was mild for March in New England, so I made a list of trails to explore and we began hiking together several times a week. It seemed everyone had the same idea—when we tried to go to places we had been before, we found them packed with people looking for their own way out.
So we made a new list. We found more obscure places—mostly hidden places—and had some grand adventures. But these adventures still felt like a lot of work. Packing up the car, making sure we had snacks, and water, and a backpack to carry all our things.
One morning I decided we would head to the road behind our house and see if we could find our way to the trails we had hiked with nature club so long ago. We discovered a boardwalk not far from our backyard, and several poorly marked trails. Those poorly marked trails became our refuge when there was nowhere else to go.
We hiked all Spring. Headed to the beach all summer, when the trails were covered in mosquitos. When the temperatures began to drop, we returned to the forest behind our house. Several times a week we’d walk outside and head to the trails. In sunshine. In rain. And even in snow. The trails we once drove to were now our backyard home.
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We hike to our fairy place, stopping for a break at the top of the hill. As we gaze out over the pond, the sun reflects off the trees, making shadow art all around us. I can’t help but think this is the stuff picture books are made of.
There isn’t a cloud in the sky, making it bluer than I ever imagined. A large clump of snow hangs on to a leaf at the top of a young beech tree, holding on for dear life. The wind blows, snow falling from the treetop canopy, making us feel as though we are standing right in the middle of a snow globe.
Not many people have discovered these woods behind our house. With not a soul in sight, it has become our own little paradise. I think I could sit here in the snow for hours. Except my stomach begins to rumble. And my children begin to whine that their fingers and toes are going numb.
We rise from our snow chairs and make our way back to the trail. As we walk, we chat about how the sun has risen higher in the sky, and how snow has begun to fall off the empty branches of the nearby hickory tree. As we approach the boardwalk leading back to our yard, I think back to that first snowy hike in these woods. I wonder if I’d be here now if it weren’t for that day. Would I have discovered these trails on my own?
Somewhere in the midst of the world falling apart, I fell in love.
Here we are, exactly two years later, and our days are full once again. The calendar is packed with dance lessons and competitions, gymnastics practices, and church activities. Doctor appointments, everyday chores, and dinner with friends. Part of me longs for those early days when there was nowhere to go. Sometimes I long for a blank calendar, full of open space. With nothing to do but explore.
If the pandemic gave me a gift, it was the gift of the great outdoors.
