Sunday, February 21, 2021

Wintering

March is seven days away. 

Hard to believe when I look out my window, the snow over snow, icicles dangling from the eaves. How many times in the last few weeks I've been out shoveling, scraping the cars, the temperature hovering under 20 degrees, and still, I feel lucky

to have electricity. Running water. A warm home. My mother and in-laws got their first vaccine doses. My daughter and her boyfriend, who have been living with my husband and me during the pandemic, have promising job prospects and are eagerly making plans to strike out on their own. In the meantime they're cooking us dinner every night, gourmet meals that if I show you the pictures, omg you will be so jealous.

I am ridiculously overjoyed by these dinners. 

I'm reading a book called Wintering. It's not really about winter, but more of a metaphor about how sometimes, when things get to be too much, we have to take a break. Retreat. In a time of slow moving catastrophe, our bodies can only take so much anxiety, fear and dread before we shut down, go numb. 

Instead of resisting, it's okay to lean in to hibernation. Go all in with the Starbucks coffee after shoveling. The long walks with the bundled up dogs. Books by the fire. Music and silly Tik-Tok videos. Gourmet meals 

each day

each day

each day

until the snow melts and this strange dark cold beautiful winter comes to an end.





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