There are some who say that my snowman looks sad.
My son says he looks homeless. My wife says that, given his slump, he needs Eldoa, which is a stretching regimen born from Pilates, designed to strengthen the back.
Indeed, since I built him last week on our front lawn, my snowman has changed. He has slouched forward in the midday sun. Snow has fallen and given him a a new hairdo, and covered his now hunched shoulders with a fresh white shawl.
I guess I feel a bit protective about him, as his creator. Not that I spent much time on him, poor guy.
He was born after the first big snowfall of winter. The snow fell fluffy in the night; by morning the weather had warmed, transforming the whiteness into a providential blanket of perfect packing snow.
On my way to work I stopped in the front yard and quickly rolled a big ball, a second smaller torso ball and a third for the head. I shaped a small cylinder of snow for a nose and poked two holes for the eyes. Instant snowman.
I love building with snow. On the farm in Quebec where I grew up snow was pretty much all we had, so we found ways to enjoy it.
Perhaps the ephemeral nature of snow appeals to me. It certainly appealed to my father, who only likes to build temporary things, such as teepees and wooden towers and bamboo wind turbines.
My father is not by nature competitive, but he did win the snow carving contest on Dow’s Lake during Winterlude in Ottawa one winter.
He said that winter that he went to the National Research Council to research snow structures.
“Everything that’s ever been written in Canada about how to build with snow can fit on one page,” he announced, which has a ring of truthiness.
Anyway, he took four sheets of plywood and attached them together to make a box with no top or bottom. We shoveled in snow until the box was full, with several of his many offspring inside the box jumping up and down to pack the snow. We ended up with blocks of snow, which froze overnight; in the morning he carved in the blocks figures of the Canadian Winter Olympic team. Won first prize.
Then, of course, as all good things made of snow, it eventually melted.
The same fate, I am afraid, awaits my snowman. But for now he persists. I call him a survivor, and I applaud his resilience. In these days of global warming, every day a snowman survives is a feat worthy of applause.
Besides, the other day I yelled to my neighbour across the street, as she shoveled her walk, “Looks nice!”
“Not as nice as your snowman,” she replied.
So there.