Grand Canyon Snow

It’s a balmy 10 degrees in Arkansas’s City of Roundabouts this morning. Mother Nature has sweetly spread a blanket of white powdery snow across the state, pretty much halting everything for the next few days. All is quiet inside and out, save for a few birds staking out the best options from the neighborhood feeders. This widespread hush has resulted in a trip down Memory Lane, to wintry day about a year ago, the scenery, I admit, a bit more impressive than my backyard. 

“Let’s go to the Grand Canyon,” he said about a week after Christmas 2022. ”We should be able to get hotel reservations, right?” Checking online, I found availability during the second week of the new year. And so, in an attempt to begin 2023 on the right foot, on a early morning in January, we loaded the car with a suitcase full of warm attire and headed west. 

Our three day visit there, which I will describe in my next blog, was phenomenal. I mean, it’s the freaking Grand Canyon, how could it not be phenomenal? 

Phenomenal though it may be, murmurings of a weather forecast on our last day began to fill me with a bit of anxiety. ”Maybe we should think about going home this afternoon,” I suggested.

“I don’t think the storm is supposed to hit until later tomorrow.” 

It became blatantly obvious about 5:00 p.m. that evening that his prediction was erroneous, as huge icy flakes began to litter the ground. Tapping into that sense of childlike wonder, my husband smiled and suggested taking a walk in the snow. I acquiesced, enjoying the sounds of our feet padding a new path down the sidewalk. 

If only I had kept that focus, that mindset. Unfortunately, I allowed anxiety to overwhelm my psyche as the storm grew stronger. With the anxiety came the tremors of Parkinson’s followed by a sleepless night, which led to more anxiety and tremors. 

I was a hot mess.

Kurt assured me everything would be okay; we’d get home, even if we had to hire sled dogs. And so, as the sun was rising, he decided to take his camera outside, a photo-sesh with nature. He extended an invitation, but I said no. I had tremors and anxiety to tend to.

After about twenty minutes, I decided to go to a common area in the hotel that bragged a picturesque view. In spite of my panic stricken state, I had to admit that it was absolutely lovely. And then I thought about St. Francis.  

I had been studying the life of St. Francis during that time. A lover of nature and simplicity, I knew immediately that anxiety about a plan of travel would be the farthest thing from his mind. Making snow angels would be more par for the course.

This image seemed to unravel the angst, not enough to compel me into my own exercise of snow angel manufacturing, but a dose ample enough to make me smile. 

What a “Grand” way to start the new year!