Crashing, swearing, yelling a bit, and then taking it all in and reassessing is a sequence of events that I think most of us are all too familiar with. Life is interesting, frustrating, and exhilarating; so is snow plowing. When applying for this service position with the SLA, one of the most appealing things I saw in the description was all of the certifications I would receive for free and all of the skills that I would learn on the job. The three I was most excited for were scuba, a commercial boating license, and learning to drive a snow plow. I remember getting behind the wheel of the truck for the first time with the plow on, sitting in the driver’s seat with a fellow AmeriCorps member and our Trails and Access Manager. I remember thinking “This is why people wear seatbelts!” as I jolted into the snowbank for the first time, whipping my head against the seat rest. Feeling slightly terrified at the creaking and groaning of the plow lifting out of the snow bank, I backed up, and thought I had broken the plow from all of the noise. I soon realized that my crash into the snowbank was a less than wimpy attempt, and that heavy machinery will definitely make noises that sound worse than they are. After a few more swipes, and a few more snowstorms, I came to realization that plowing is one of my favorite parts about the job. To be as cliché as possible, it quite frankly makes me feel alive. I crank up the bluegrass music as loud as I can take it, hoot and holler when I crash into a snowbank, and nobody is there to judge me! Well, except when two of us are in the truck… Once I was comfortable in the plow, I realized how much fun I was really having. The closest I could come to describe the experience I have is probably what teenage boys feel like making crop circles in a corn field, almost degenerate-like. But mix that with the feeling of doing something very productive and you get a- helpful degenerate? It was a new side of me that I was excited to get to know, someone who could make their own fun while doing a task that others might consider tedious or a chore.
In the last year or so, I have been starting to really get to know myself better, to start to see the sides of me that really defined who I was. Some of these sides are quirks and some are character/personality traits that I am able to better define and look objectively at in myself. It didn’t take too long for me to realize that the Maggy I met in the snow plow was another true facet of “me” poking through, and that was only the first time. Throughout my few months here at the SLA I have had quite a few instances where I took a step back, reassessed my reaction to a situation or the way in which I worked on something and said to myself “Yes, that’s the kind of worker I want to be, and that’s the kind of person I want to be.” So, even though there have been struggles, and a lot of recent yelling, swearing, crashing and burning in non-work aspects of life, I have been practicing backing up the plow and reassessing what’s left to be done; what’s the next swipe of snow to take care of, and how am I going to do it? My time here is teaching me not only to be a better worker with more skills and craftsman ship, but it’s also teaching me about myself, about the person I want to be, and how to get there. The steps may be small, and not as grandiose as a snow plow taking an effortless swipe at an empty parking lot, but they are steps nonetheless, and I’m excited to see how my new self is going to improve her plan of attack on life. So for now, I’ll keep hootin’ and hollerin’ behind the wheel and allow that side of me continue to emerge while I keep learning all that the SLA has to teach me.
Maggy is a dog-loving, goofy, friendly ,& out-going member of our team. She will be here until August, so be sure to keep an eye out for her on Squam! You can read more about Maggy here!