Shovelling In A Snow Storm
Have you ever tried to shovel snow during a snow storm?
If you live in Winnipeg, this may have been your experience this winter if you tried to keep your sidewalks, entrances and pathways clear, it has been the snowiest winter on record since 1987, the year I was born!
That was me yesterday, shovelling while it was snowing. And as I moved snow from one area to another, I watched more snow blow in and cover my formerly shovelled area with new snow. It made for demoralizing progress. But I persisted. I was thinking of the difficulty and danger of coming in and out of my house while the path was full of snow, I thought of the mail people who would need to bring me flyers and bills lol. So I shovelled on. All the way to the street where I used my shovel as a bludgeoning tool to carve a pathway through the compressed aftermaths of the street plows. Those plow piles now reach five to six feet in each of my neighbours yards and all the way down my street.
And the snow continues to fall. And so I “finish” shovelling, knowing I will need to do it again tomorrow.
To the unacquainted, you may wonder why some of us choose to shovel in a snow storm. To those of us who live in winter and are used to this kind of weather, we shovel in a show storm because we only have two choices when we are faced with a heavy snow fall:
First, we could watch the snow falling, getting higher and higher until it finishes snowing and it's nice enough to go shovel. The nice part of it is we don't shovel in the snow storm and don't have to watch in real time as our hard work is immediately undone by mother nature.
Or, we could shovel in the snow storm. We shovel once now, knowing we are going to have to shovel again later. We do this because if we go with the first option, that means we have to do one HUGE shoveling job, that will exert tons of energy and it will be quite difficult. However, by shovelling in the snow storm, we exert an average amount of energy during the snow storm and an average amount of energy when it's done snowing. Dividing our energy we use shovelling us leaves is with more energy to do the things we love doing.
Regardless of the choices we make, we at least are forced to get some physical activity if we want to get in and our of our own dwellings with ease.
There is a lesson here for how we live our lives. Do we do the maintenance and preparation work only at times where it seems more convenient to us? Or do we perform constant ongoing tasks to ensure that we can apply our energy and attention to other things that bring us joy or wellness?
And then I think of the work I've done and many of you do working in systems, fighting against oppression and building new systems rooted in love and justice.
It is easy to be discouraged when the progress feels so slow and the stakes so high and the need for change so urgent. Health, education, child welfare, media, communications and community all require our attention. Protecting the environment and minimizing human damage to the planet is so urgent. But when we recycle, or when we use a paper straw instead of a plastic one, or a reusable bag instead of a disposable plastic one, it feels a lot like shovelling in a snow storm. We need countries and corporations to take this seriously if we want to save the oceans and the air we need to breathe. We as citizens can and should take every available opportunity to help (including writing about it) but we need whole systems and society to change and alter their their environmentally harmful behaviours. It feels like we're already out of time - but I can't give up. It feels like we're shovelling in a snow storm, because we are.
But I'm gonna continue to do what I can to call for large scale change and education about anti racism, cultural safety and trauma informed approaches within systems. I'm gonna continue to push to have people with lived experience to be centered in discussions or projects affecting them at all levels. I'm gonna continue to pursue the things I'm passionate about including shining a light on solutions and celebrating the actions happening that help our community take even tiny steps towards empowerment and healing. I'm gonna push for policies and support companies that reflect these values. And I’m gonna continue to ask those of you still reading, to do what you can do, too.
