A Morning After Snow

I am bundled up.

6:15 AM.

It was dark and cold.

As the temperature was less than zero degrees and wind speed was more than 25 KM/hour, it was bone chilling for someone like me who is experiencing his first snow in Canada. My driveway was covered with 5 centimeters of snow from overnight snowfall. I am bundled up with my winter jacket, snow boots, and snow gloves. My nose and eyes were not covered or wrapped around with something warm.

A stream has a thin ice-layer.

A casual look at calendar suggests that this was still a fall as winter will officially begin on December 21, 2017. And here on this fall morning, I stood in the driveway during an ungodly hour with a shovel in my hand getting ready to clear snow from my driveway.

After few minutes of shoveling, fatigue had set in my arms and hands. The shovel felt like as if someone had tied cinder blocks on my hands, arms and back. I could feel churning of muscles happening in my core and realized I am in the middle of an extremely good workout routine. In that moment, I decided not to go for any gym membership for winters and will rely on shoveling snow to keep myself in shape. After all, there’s a silver lining to a snow-covered driveway. After I finished clearing snow, my two exposed body parts - nose and eyes faced the wrath of the cold morning. My nose was red like Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer of Santa and eyes were watery.

Whiteness everywhere.

Later in the day, my wife was leaving for her office. She usually leaves her glasses in the car. But not anymore as she’s wiser now from her experience and she learned not to do it the hard way. That morning when she picked up the case of her glasses, it was frozen. She tried opening the frigid case with her bare hands but could not succeed as it made her hands cold rendering her efforts of opening it ineffective. Releasing that it’s not the time to apply force, she wrapped the frozen glass cover in few napkins and held it in front of heating vents of the car. It took her few minutes to bring them to a comfortable temperature so that she could use her glasses again.

My first winters are nothing short of an adventure in Canada. They can make any sane mind crazy. The winds are vicious when they hit the face. Mornings are cold, cheerless and wretched. Walking on the snow-laden sidewalks is tough as chilly wind cuts through the clothing bringing the shiver to the whole body. I avoid wearing my AirPods as I fear if they fell in a white snow then I will have a chance, if any, to find them in next summer when snow would melt away.

Birds don't feel much cold.

I have spent my entire life in places where temperatures hover little above than zero degrees during winters, I have taken treks in snow-clad peaks of Himalayas and I have experienced snow in hill stations but I have realised after my first snow that nothing is going to prepare you for blistering and ferocious chilly morning of December in Canada. You have to be there to experience it like I am doing it.