Zen and the art of winter preparedness

Just like I prepared our property for winter by clearing the driveway verge of vegetation that would cause drifting and other problems when the snow and cold hit, my mental and emotional preparedness for winter weather was impeccable this fall.

By mid-September I had myself in an admirably zen-like mental state about winter — not capital-letter Zen as in of the school of Mahayana Buddhism, but lower-case zen in the Western sense of being in the moment, accepting, open-hearted and at peace with the future, as well as the now. Breathe and be thankful. Life is beautiful. Even in winter.

Those cold days and snow in October? I was all. “Yeah, it’s all going to be OK. This is Montana and the weather is what it is. This is nothing, really. The sun is warm during the day. It was much worse last year, and we all survived, so everybody just take a breath, make a snow angel and have some cocoa.”

Life was good.

Then the weather got nice again, so life was, I admit, a little bit better for it.

Last week, I was feeling the payoff. I was a bit euphoric and couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Every day, I was thankful for the pleasant weather, the sunshine, the little stretches of rain to nourish the plants, the real-fall weather.

“I know winter is coming,” I said out loud to humans “but I am more ready this year than ever. I’m thankful for that and for every nice day we’ve had, so I’m very accepting of what comes.”

Weather forecasters are great for details, but I don’t need one to tell me that winter is coming. As far as I can tell, it has come every year like clockwork (give or take a month or two). “Hating winter just drains us without affecting change to Mother Nature’s plan. It’s all just love here in my heart,” I told no one in particular.

Then Monday came and brought winter with it.

It could be worse, I told myself in the biting cold.

I was outside in my fall jacket doing morning chores in the pitch black — despite the time change. The rain had turned to snow and delicate flakes glinted in the glow of my flashlight. I had to stop working a few times to warm my hands because the fal jacket wasn’t up to combating winter temps and, as a fall jacket, it had no mittens in the pockets.

I had to break ice on the water trough and pull the icy chunks out with my bare hands. The horses wanted more food for fuel, the dog abandoned me, the cat kept slowing me down, snuggling into the loose hay that I was trying to gather up.

I was tapping into my zen reserves — with some success. It could’ve been worse

A few hours later, I saw that a friend had taken a beautiful early morning photo of their cows in the six inches of white snow she got in the Bear Paw Mountains overnight. The snow had fallen straight down, covering the grassy glade and the forest. The wet, black, tree trunks and fence posts and the black cows stood in stark contrast to the wintry white scene.

Oh, the white-cold horror.

“What?! This right here is a bunch of expletiving expletive,” I told my computer screen. Loudly.

I pretty much haven’t stopped swearing since then.

It’s not very expletiving zen-like, but I’m OK with that. Sure, meditation and thankfulness can lead to a long and fulfilling life, but so can being true to yourself. Frankly, I default to swearing and sarcasm with a minor anger-management issue for back up. They’re like a fuel additive for on-demand power.

All this zen-ness just makes me want to curl into a ball under a blanket and wait it out till spring, but I have expletive to get done, and that isn’t happening without a fire inside and a few choice words about the state of the universe.

So expletive you, winter. I’m back, and if you’re going to dish it out, I’m going to expletive-well have a few expletive things to say about that.

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An expletiving expletiver, two expletives and good winter clothing, that’s it at [email protected].