Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Wednesday was an official snow day, that is a day off without having to take a day off.

In the middle of taking an early morning walk (I couldn't go back to sleep after hearing the words: "school is cancelled today" at five am) I realized that none of the men at the end of my little private road were going to do anything about the snow and ice that covered our road that does not get plowed since it is a private road. Usually the neighbor takes out his snow blower and does his driveway and our driveway and the whole road—up the hill—to the neighborhood road. (The distance must be about the length of two football fields.) And since I have had it waiting for people to do things that might benefit me, I decided to just shovel it myself. I had no intention of having my car being stuck in the garage another day, even if tomorrow ended up being another snow day.

And so, out came the shovel, and out went my non-conditioned body to—over the course of about five hours with significant breaks when I felt I should not risk a heart attack to make a point, take a stand, and do what needs to be done with help from no one—shovel two tracks up the hill for the tires of my car.

I will refrain from repeating the utterance that came to mind when exman drove up the road that I had just cleared after much toil. But after that "comment" I repeated to myself that I had cleared the road for myself and that’s what counts, not that it ended up benefitting him. 

When I finished I drove my car through the beautifully cleared path up the hill and parked it on the side of the neighborhood road that gets far more traffic than my road with its four houses, two at the bottom of the hill, one in the middle with the retired couple for whom I retrieved their paper this morning because it was too slippery for the man of the house to drive his car up to the mailbox, and the couple towards the top who have never so much as shoveled or de-iced a centimeter of common road, even when the part in front of their drive was the iciest part of the road. And exman, once a leech always a leech. I don't know why neighbor man or his son did nothing, but that is not my concern--I am.

It feels good to have been outside, to have one-upped exercise because I moved my body for a purpose, and to have accomplished something that I thought would be too big a task for me to accomplish alone. Give a girl a shovel and I'll show you a clear path.