A foot

Last night we had a foot of snow. Driving back to Hyde Park this morning was miserable. 2 hours 45 minutes in a trip along Interstate 55 that should have taken just 40 minutes. I never went above 20 miles per hour. Even worse: the plows hadn’t been able to get onto the interstate and the snow was deep enough that my car was bottoming out!

I’ve decided I like Hyde Park when it’s completely shut down by weather. It’s a peaceful place. Cars give pedestrians the right of way because they have to go so slow. The snow drifts to the point that parallel parking is almost impossible, so people don’t even try and instead use the parking garage (which is what I did at 9:15am for my 9:00am class). Time and convenience – or, I guess the constant lack of both – are no longer issues that plague the neighborhood. It just seems right.

When I was walking in the snow on the way to class and seeing my feet sink in to mid-calf, I noticed that there’s a softness about snow. Like fine beach sand that is really light, this snow didn’t give much resistance as I padded along the paths of others, returning it step by step into the sidewalk pattern we tread. This morning the inconvenience reminded me that a foot can show us the lost art of enjoying life afoot

UPDATE (8:04pm): So I should have learned my lesson.  I impaled my car in a snow drift when I tried to move it closer to the Disciples House.  I had kicked out enough snow that the tires were on concrete, but that wasn’t enough.  Then a kind, random stranger pulled up and pulled a shovel out of his back seat and let me dig enough so I could park the car.  His name is Cliff and he works at Quality Car Wash up on 53rd Street; someone (ME!) is having his car washed there soon and leaving a tip just for him.