Spiderman, Buttered Popcorn and Snow

It’s snowing outside. They have issued a winter storm warning. It’s really the first snow we have had all year. I don't know if I've said, but I live in Montana, and we are usually buried in snow. This year, has been odd, not much different than living in California.

I spent the greater portion of my evening holding my kids, watching “Free Willy” and eating buttered popcorn by the fire. This is the sort of stuff that makes me really happy. Just knowing my kids are getting past the baby stage, and are actually able to participate in activities. It’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure.

Anyway, after I tucked their sweet toddler, buttered popcorn smelling bodies in bed tonight, I just sat and watched them for awhile. They are so peaceful. They really don’t have any worries in this world. My small son, he has turned into Spiderman. I bought him a Spiderman costume on clearance after Halloween, and he has lived in it since. He sleeps in it, eats in it. Wears it all day when he is home, it’s ripping in odd places, the Spiderman hood is getting snags in it. I finally gave in this week and hunted down a new costume on the internet. It hasn’t come yet, and honestly it can’t come soon enough, it’s hard to get this one off of him long enough to wash it.

I’m seeing a very creative side coming out in him as he gets older, and I just love it. I love that he jumps around the house in his Spidey costume. When he does finally take it off...he lies it out on his bed, with his little Spiderman slippers at the feet, the Spiderman mask laid out, the little gloves laid out. It’s so stinking cute. Tonight, he told me I was his “best girl”. What can a mom say to that?

Anyway, back to the snow. It looks so pristine outside. Like giant snow pillows. The air is totally crisp. It makes me want to go dig out my fire pit, and have a campfire in the middle of this snow storm. How crazy is that?

I can’t wait to drive my huge car through it tomorrow, crunching, sliding a little, and feeling like yes, we are going to get a winter after all. Maybe I should get my 4-wheeler out and plow the drive way like a little kid. I love love this. It’s making me less homesick. I feel completely excited tonight to see how much snow we actually get.

See snow is still new to me, this is only my 4th winter here in Montana, before that, I could count the times I had been in “real” snow on 2 hands. I had no idea how to drive in it when I first moved here, it scared me.

Then I got my monster truck with the 4-wheel drive, and learned, with baby steps how to live in the snow. This is why I’m excited. Just like I used to be excited when I lived by the beach and a huge ass storm would come in, bring torrential rain, wind and all kinds of nature with it.

I think the one thing I really love about Montana is it’s wildness. The snow of course, the beauty of it. The forests. The lakes and rivers. I love to take out my 4-wheeler for all day rides. I’ve seen moose in the backwoods.

The lightening storms here I have never experienced anywhere else. I live up on a hill, looking down over an entire valley, and when a lightening storm comes in, it is truly a sight to see. I have witnessed lighting coming down around my house, it’s scary and exhilarating at the same time.

I have no idea where I’m going with this, except that this is how my Cancer/Gemini mind wanders around. It just meanders down one path, until there is a fork in the road. Something will point me in the direction I want to go, and so I take a turn, and wander some more. I never feel truly lost. I feel like I’m found.

My sister and I had a conversation this week. She got some sort of GPS thing, I’m not even sure what it is really, but it’s so she wont get “lost”. Keep in mind she still lives in the same town we grew up in that is laid out on a grid, with the streets running north and south named with letters, and the streets running east and west numbered. She has lived there for aproximately 36 of her 40 years. She was trying to get me excited about it, but I’m just not. I’ve never felt lost.

I always figure I’ll find my way back on some very cool, new road that I’ve never been on before. She on the other hand is terrified of being lost.

I remember 20 years ago, we were housemates in N. California, we had just moved to the redwoods so that I could go to University. I was so excited. I would point my little car up a road and just drive, excited to see where this road might take me, where would I end up?? She on the other hand, was usually completely freaked that we were “lost”. I have never been able to understand this, and she is completely unable to understand that I don’t feel lost, ever. Difference in two humans from the same family.

Now me, I got this beautiful new red iPod Nano for Xmas, it’s my 2nd one, I filled the first one up completely. I got the saddest little message one night, “unable to sync” out of room, or some such nonsense...anyway, when I got this new little red corvette of iPods, I was completely stoked. She didn’t understand that either, she couldn’t figure out why I needed a new one. Why I wanted a new one.

I can’t explain it to her, or explain how music is what feeds my soul, it always has. Music is the one constant in my life, listening to an old song is like wearing a comfy pair of jeans...it just fits...

It’s midnight, and I suppose it’s time for this old broad to get to bed, if you’ve made it this far, I congratulate you for your tenacious reading abilities...

Peace,

OC