I have more experience with snow than I’ve ever desired after living in Chicago for the better part of two decades, but all snow is not created equal.

Growing up in southern Louisiana, I remember anticipating my first snow experience with glee. My favorite movie at the time was Bambi (I believe I was around five or six) and I loved the part where Bambi prances around in the snow for the first time with Thumper. I had daydreams about digging a big tunnel into the snow and making my own little snow warren. My parents had rented a place in Colorado (I think) to go skiing during the Mardi Gras holiday. There was soooo much snow! I was very excited.

This image is completely owned by Disney. Have you ever seen Bambi? Very little dialogue, wonderful musical score, including the use of silence and of course, breathtaking art.

Unfortunately, snow was not soft, blue-tinted and fluffy warm like it appeared on my t.v. screen when I watched Bambi. It was cold and it was wet and it was not fun to dig in. I did not enjoy snow and I was disappointed on multiple levels.

Not too many years later, I learned to ski and learned to make snowballs and learned the difference between icy snow and powder. I made peace with the snow and even enjoyed it when we visited it (which was semi-annually as my mom’s family lived in Idaho and we often went skiing over Mardi Gras). I was happy not to live in it, though.

I moved to Chicago in 2001 and my relationship with snow leveled up.

I learned a lot about footwear that first winter. I sold my car that spring. Parking downtown was expensive, I took the train everywhere, later biking, and I was terrified of driving in the snow. It’s something I never felt the need to learn how to do. I did, however, bike in the snow like a maniac. The first year I decided to do the year round bike commuter thing was the winter of ‘13/’14 when Chicago was hit by vortex after vortex. That was also the year that they switched their public transit passes from the Chicago Card (which had worked just fine, thank you very much) to the Ventra card, which had a terrible launch. Anyone who was able to cling to their Chicago Cards did so for as long as possible to avoid the Ventra system. And my card had been on a pay as you go plan since I was biking so much in the summer. If I wanted to switch to a seven day pass, I would be forced to switch to Ventra. Thus I made myself bike often enough to avoid this. It was miserable.

My bike, complete with Bar Mitts, covered in snow after a ride home one night.

I feel like outdoor activities in extreme temperatures often come with a learning curve.

That first year was the worst, not just because I had inadequate gear, but also because I had to be out in the weather constantly. This was also my first year as a full time fitness instructor and trainer, so I was always going from location to location, never staying in one place all day. I was in the elements constantly. But I learned. An extra set of pants on top of the pants I would be teaching in. Pack running shoes, wear snow boots. Two pairs of gloves. Bar Mitts for the bike handles. Pack extra hand and toe warmers for the final commute home. And on and on. I watched the weather obsessively for windspeed and direction. The wind was often the deciding factor on biking vs. paying for the train. Sometimes I would bike to work with the wind and put the bike on the train home. That was the year I really began to hate the winter.

Me going to meet a friend during a blizzard in Chicago in 2011.

Previous to that year, I had worked a standard office job and martial arts was my activity of choice. Martial arts and the office job are both indoors. The winter didn’t get to me as much those years. But the more active I became, the more I began to enjoy biking, gardening, running, etc. the more I began to detest the snow. It just made everything harder and more complicated. It dictated the clothes you wore, it changed the amount of time needed to prepare for the day as well as the amount of time needed to get to where you wanted to go and it was a slip hazard.

One winter the first snow came early and unexpectedly. I had biked to work that day. By the time I was heading home, it had snowed and Chicago wasn’t ready. The streets had not been treated and they were all coated with a thin layer of ice. Unfortunately, my commute took place during rush hour when bikes are forbidden on the trains. I fell immediately upon leading the parking lot of the gym, fast and hard, no time to react. Fortunately I was wearing a helmet, but it still hurt. A woman ran out into the street to alert oncoming cars. I fell two more times before I got home. What normally took me 25 minutes took over an hour. That was when I really internalized how much of an impact treated roads and plows have on road safety.

We made the move to Tennessee almost two years ago. We’re coming up on the anniversary, actually. One of my many reasons for wanting to leave Chicago was the weather. I knew I didn’t want to deal with those winters when I got old. We have a car now, and it’s nice to opt for the car on the very cold and dark early mornings, although I do try and bike for the most part. We had some light snows last year and earlier this year and they didn’t really impact anything as the snow didn’t stick. It was actually enjoyable to watch.

The trees were just beginning to get glazed over as we drove home on Sunday.

This week we got slammed with a wintery mix on Sunday night. Dean and I barely beat it back from visiting my parents for their anniversary. This was to be my first week after leaving the management job and I was excited for my lighter schedule. We had notifications and updates from the gym that I teach at and they stressed safety first and gave us a procedure to follow if we weren’t going to be able to make it in. At the time, I didn’t think much of it.

Monday morning, I woke up and there was a white glaze over everything. I have still not learned to drive in the snow. I woke Dean up and asked him to come look at the snow and tell me I he thought I should drive. He blearily stumbled out of bed at 5:30am and checked out the ground. “No,” he said, “this is frozen ice. You shouldn’t go.” I followed the agreed upon procedure and the gym was very understanding. I am sure that I’m not the only one that called in that morning. The gym has been operating on limited classes and limited hours all week. My publishing job is work from home. We hunkered down.

I like to call this one “What Is this Stuff?”

This is blissful, I thought. Just want I’ve always wanted!

We had food, we had heat, we had a treadmill and weights, we had (at least partial) income and I didn’t have to stress about risking myself on the roads. I was excited about not having to be forced to deal with the snow.

For some reason there was still a little bit of anxiety. The gym was doing day to day checks on the weather, so I often didn’t know their plan until the night before. I had to cancel some personal training at a different gym. I was still able to do virtual training out of my home, but some of my clients had to cancel because they have kids at home. It was a little unnerving to go from fourteen-hour-a-day work weeks to … very chill and fluid days. Some days I still got up at 5am and did my workout like normal, two days I stayed in bed at worked out later. I tried to tell myself that it was nice, and part of it was, but there was a bit of anxiety and guilt there that I wasn’t prepared for.

Finally today I unearthed my Yak Trax for the first time, grabbed my sub zero athletic pants and threw on three top layers, a stocking cap and mittens and headed out the door for an experimental run. I told Dean that I didn’t know how long I would last or how it would be, I just wanted to try. I’d been stuck in the house since Sunday, other than a surprisingly enjoyable time taking the kittens out on leashes to enjoy the snowfall. They actually liked it so much that we were ready to go in before they were. I was getting a little bit of cabin fever.

I never used my Yak Trax in Chicago, as they’re not supposed to really be used on extensive levels of concrete, and I was usually running on at least partially shoveled and salted sidewalk before I got to my icy running trail. Nothing in Nashville was shoveled or salted. It was a definite workout for my legs, but with the four inches of fresh powder we had, the danger of slipping was minimal. My lake path was completely blanketed and beautiful. I took a few pictures which didn’t really capture the silent charm of the landscape.

I enjoyed the snow.

It will be even colder tomorrow and my legs are sore from over an hour of running through inches of damp fluff, but I’m considering going out again. The nice thing is, it’s up to me.

Snowed In