There are four weeks until Solstice and I’m getting that restless angst. The nights seem interminable and much too solitary especially without my dog this year. The answer is to write. I know this. That’s the opportunity this hideously dark season offers me—to write without missing out on anything. But instead of surrendering to that, I find myself looking for distraction. The primroses in my kitchen whose budding blossoms seem to coincide with new romances and whose dying blossoms seem to coincide with the ends of romances currently have no blossoms. They haven’t for awhile. No, according to my primroses, there is nothing promising in my near future. There will be no distraction. It takes awhile for me to surrender to what is, to settle into empty darkness of winter and see it for what it is—a divine time of creative inception. Do I have a solitary life because writing is what I was born to do and writing requires solitude, or am I a writer just to cope with solitude? Are my characters nothing more than socially acceptable imaginary friends? I don’t know. I just know this weekend I had a hard time surrendering to the very thing that would bring me peace. My soul mate grandmother went to heaven a couple months ago. I still don’t know for sure if I have largely been in a state of denial or a state of grace, but I think it was mostly grace. I went home for Thanksgiving and it was the first time I’d been back in my hometown since her departure. I was given some of her things… her cedar chest, her silverware, her spoon collection, a little photo album full of baby pictures of me that she once showed to her friends, her sewing basket. There is something very personal about a woman’s sewing basket… the needles she held stuck into a pin cushion as if she might use them again. The physicality of what is left behind can mess me up. For instance, I am clear that she is in heaven. But her ashes are in the cemetery. The ashes are not her. They are the physicality of what is left behind. It’s easy to forget and think the physicality of what is left behind is her when it’s not. I get so attached to the physical. I am a very physical person. And I guess that is possibly the point of earth life, at least for me—to use physical things and experiences to test certain spiritual theorems and find truth. Tonight I was lovingly polishing Grandma’s silverware in my somewhat dark living room and contemplating how something that is polished can shine brightly even when there is little light to reflect. What would it look like or entail, I wondered, to polish myself during this dark season? This year has left me feeling a bit tarnished. I had some big losses—my grandmother, my dog, my soul brother Ed who could no longer endure this life and opted out… Ten years ago, he called me from two states away in distress. I called EMS in his city and because of their respectful and caring intervention, he went on to live nine more mostly very happy years. A year ago exactly he called me once more and I called him back three days too late. Rationally, I know his death isn’t my fault, but it weighs on me just the same. I don’t know how to polish up that place in my soul except to keep forgiving him and keep forgiving me and to keep practicing faith, and know that right now hes okay and its okay and Im okay. Each time I have to do a lock down drill my class of little kids, I still feel the impact of Sandy Hook. I still feel angry at my country and my culture for what I see as the root-- its unquenchable thirst for violence, for its obsession with violence as entertainment. Im still mad that teaching and drilling little kids and teachers to cower in a corner is our country and our cultures answer to this problem. The only way for me to polish that place in my soul is to somehow forgive this ambiguous entity while simultaneously try to change it. Its slippery and elusive. I cant quite get my hands on it. Soul things can be difficult to identify and deal with. Often times, if I take care of my physical body, my soul issues seem to clear up on their own. I’ve been taking better care of my physical body lately, being disciplined about exercising even when my hearts not in it. Usually exercise for me is an expression of joy. Usually I feel so much joy inside me I think Ill surely blow up if I dont run and get some of it out. Or sometimes its just a great way to spend time with friends. If I’m having enough fun, exercise happens. But once in a great while there is a time when I simply have to pull myself out of grief or Weltschmerz and back into a higher level of vitality and that requires plain old discipline. It’s true that when Im healthier, I shine brighter. It’s a start. It’s a clear, tangible, and relatively easy way I can polish myself up a little bit now. Polishing, reflecting, light. These are good things to think about in December. Acceptance, faith, self-discipline. These are good things to practice in December. Everything ends. Good times end. Bad times end. Lives end. The intensity of grief ends. Summer ends. Winter ends. I forget sometimes that winter ends. If I cant at the moment remember how to love winter, Im glad I can at least remember it ends. This night will end. In a couple days it will be sunny again. Maybe there will be snow on the ground. A new beauty will cover the world and Ill want to ski through it just to soak in as much of that beauty as I can. My grandmothers things will begin to be part of the normal landscape of my house instead of artifacts of a recent loss. Ill settle into winter and Ill settle into a deeper level of acceptance. It will be okay. And maybe in a month or two or three or four or five, Ill get a new dog and my primroses will bloom again.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 08:52:54 +0000
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