If You Have the Basics
you are bountifully blessed.
The wind rushes through the valley this morning ahead of the advancing storm front. “Winter is coming! Winter is coming!” Just last week, we had a thunderstorm, a mid-December anomaly, during which I stood at the window thinking, “All that rain should be snow.”
I no longer know the seasons. Summer, separated from the sun by wildfire smoke, had changed; bending and breaking all the rules of gardening. And winter, well… Winter has become a lame dream of winters past when blankets of snow were feet thick, laid down one early winter night and remaining, sometimes for weeks or months.
Dreams of a White Christmas faded years ago; all our colorful lights and decorations are a bit lackluster, reflected in mud puddles. I remember a time when snowfall shimmered like diamonds, when the sheer magnificence of it inspired my mother and me to bundle ourselves up for a walk through our neighborhood in the middle of the night.
Such magnificent beauty is magic and we could all use some magic these days.
The weather predictions call for snow, this gray drizzle and these sheets of sleet converting to snow as temperatures drop in the evening. Weather warnings are issued for travelers, commuters, and drivers. I work from home now, so I am none of the above, and I am grateful I don’t have to venture any further than the chicken house.
Our new hens have never seen snow.
I recently read an article in The New York Times noting that homelessness has reached an all-time high in the United States, so though our home is humble and a bit haphazard, I am grateful for not only the roof over my head but also for running water and warmth.
I know some do not have such blessings.
Still, in my heart, I do hope for snow. Not a skiff of it, or a dusting, but a thick blanket of it that, with the cold temperatures behind the storm front, hangs out for a while. I hope for a wash of white purity over red clay mud, a white slate upon which to launch a new year.
Perhaps not a fluffy comforter, but more than a sheet, more like a quilt crafted by our Mother Nature of old.
Just a touch of magic for the season, that’s all I ask… To remind me of when Christmases were white.
Sometimes, when words won’t come, I shift from writing to painting. I’ve been painting a lot lately, so I know my posts have been more sporadic. I’m waiting on a renaissance, a rebirth of my own spirit, of community spirit, a spirit of faith and hope and sparkles and rainbows.
Winter is a time of introspection, a season for percolating and processing, and I landed in that mindset in July. I’ve been living inside my head as of late, mulling over a lack of enlightenment. It has become a practice of endurance, one I think we have all been feeling in this post-pandemic human condition.
For many, this “season of peace and joy” is quite the opposite. For them, it is a season of lack and loneliness, of gray drizzle and bitter winds. For them, there is no potential for shimmer or sparkle, not even a whisper of a renaissance or rebirth.
I have no answers for the homeless, nor can I save all the suffering. However, in a season that has become a hollow contradiction to its reason, a materialistic facade of the gift of new life and unconditional love, I can perhaps offer some pacifying perspective to you:
If you have shelter, water, heat, and food, you are blessed. If you also have health, love, and even a tiny spark of faith in anything, you have so much more than most. Even without stockings and lights, decorations and feasts, without bows or presents or company, if you can dream a little dream of hope and happiness, count your many, many blessings. It’s when we lose hope that we lose the battle.