Field Notes and Reflections from Shanley Smith
On Monday I saw my first chipmunk of the season. She had decided today was worth exiting the burrow. I found her act brave. Frost still freckled the ground and at thirty degrees you couldn’t quite call it warm outside.
Chipmunks are hibernating critters. They sleep for days on end and wake just long enough to warm their bodies and eat from the cache they’ve stored. Only occasionally do they sneak outside their home. In the past, I’ve envied their winter habits. I too wished to burrow. In a poem I wrote three years ago, I put it this way:
I’m waiting for an expert to remind me it’s fine
for nothing to grow when ground temp reaches zero, when every seed
defaults to dormant and us animals begin to burrow.
Even though I couldn’t sleep away the season, I did burrow. I warmed my rice bag and cozied up with thick stacks of blankets and my plush baby-blue robe. In 2019 I lived in a house that we never heated above 65º because we were college students and would rather pay for coffee and beer than heat our house to the proper level. Life was spent under the covers of fabric and substances like caffeine and alcohol.
This winter I didn’t stop burrowing. I let myself nest occasionally under my cable knit blanket, I took baths, and ate lots of cookies. But for the first winter in many years, I didn’t wish to hibernate. I harkened back to my snotty days of childhood where I’d play in the snow until the mucus lined my lips and my nose glowed. This winter I relearned how to play in the snow.
My dog, a husky mix, served as my primary teacher. When the first hefty snowfall arrived in January, he spent his outing rolling around in the fields. He did this for days. Eventually an ear infection got the best of him, but he still felt it worthwhile to plunge headfirst into the snowbanks. His fervor convinced me to bundle up and march into the cold. I looked forward to my quiet morning and evening walks with Fitz and the snow.
A few weeks into winter I gave cross country skiing a go. I’d grown up doing downhill, but rarely went now. I started out wobbly, but by the end of our outing Marc and I were trading strategies on how to best push through the snow. After skiing that weekend we went the next and the next and the next. One of those included a weekend trip to the U.P where we spent our days skiing across a frozen Lake Huron and our evenings burrowing with whisky in a cabin in Cedarville.
I don’t think I wished for spring once all through January, but now we’re in winter's final throw. The snow has melted three times in the past two weeks. On Tuesday temperatures reached 50º, but by Friday the plow trucks were back to work. And that’s when I admitted it… I’m ready for spring. I’m not one for the mucky middle, the literal gray zone of slush that doesn’t allow for play in the snow.
I suppose in some ways, this Purgatorio season makes me feel the vulnerability I once felt all throughout previous winters. This year, more so than blankets or boozy drinks, the snow allowed me to burrow. By diving into snow banks (less literally than Fitz) and donning ski boots, I let myself escape from all the rhythms of the year that had left me feeling whittled. Another word for burrow is retreat; I think that about sums up my weekend in the U.P. as well as my afternoon outings to ski locally at Pigeon Creek.
But now the snow and ice are melting. It feels like hustle and bustle are calling after me. The chipmunk has decided it’s time to start moving and she won’t stop until Winter’s Solstice. Her heart rate has moved from fifteen beats per minute during hibernation, to the usual 350. So begins the season of hurry.
Full disclosure: I’d like to keep burrowing. My mind is asleep and I’ve had trouble writing. But when the sun rolls out (like it is at this moment), my body yearns for something different. No more burrowing! It tells me. My conscience has started to stir. It’s time to start adventuring.
Shanley Smith (she/her) resides in Holland, Michigan where she spends her days writing, teaching, advocating for the environment, and walking her dog. She proudly serves as Dimly Lit's head editor and founder.