Meditation on a snowy morning: Coziness brings some comfort
Monday morning, January 6, 10 a.m.—It’s snowing. It has been snowing for almost 24 hours. It started while we were at church yesterday, and I decided to quickly check-in with Evelyn on my way home, before the roads got worse.
I have been here since then. I watched it snow all afternoon yesterday. And evening. The weather reporter this morning said it stopped awhile overnight, but we will get two or four more inches before it’s finished this afternoon. The perfect layer of snow on my patio deck railing is maybe eight inches deep already.
The temperatures today and the rest of the week will not get above freezing, and I have no plans to leave home today. Maybe I’ll fire up the snow blower and try to clear my driveway. Maybe a neighbor will take pity on this old man and do it for me. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.
Flexibility and freedom
All of this illustrates the flexibility and freedom I have these days. Evelyn is well taken care of where she’s living, and if there’s an emergency with her health or a variable with her condition, someone there will handle it. My refrigerator and pantry are filled with leftovers from the holiday; I won’t need to buy food for a week. The utilities are working; I’m warm and dry. My gas fireplace is warm and wonderful, and I enjoyed it most of yesterday.
Last night I was anticipating the cozy evening at home, eating what I wanted, when I wanted. The cleaning lady had come Thursday, and the place was still in pretty good condition. What a treat, after all the hubbub of housing and feeding eight family members over Christmas, simply to sit in my sweats on the sofa and binge on Netflix.
Speaking of Christmas, if you walked into my living room, you wouldn’t know Christmas was almost two weeks ago. Trees in two corners are still decorated, and I lit them both last night. Poinsettias bloom on the mantel and dining room table, and a bouquet of evergreen is only just now beginning to drop needles.
I haven’t turned off the outside lights, either. Usually I pull the plug on January 2, even if the weather’s too nasty to go take them down. But I let them glow again last night, and from windows at the front of the house, I looked out to see how beautifully the red and twinkling white reflected off the mounting snow. But seeing their beauty made me feel sad for an instant.
Coziness and Comfort?
I’m wondering why I was holding on to the nostalgia created by all the holiday ambience. And I can’t decide why all my coziness and comfort did not satisfy me yesterday.
I think I’m still adjusting to my new life.
No longer am I commenting to Evelyn about the snow on the deck or hearing her volunteer to help me shovel the driveway or responding to her urging me to be careful when I go out. No longer can I settle into the unspoken, simple satisfaction of watching a movie on TV with her and reacting to it together.
The glow of the tree in the corner, the flicker of the fireplace, the warmth of several hundred lights resisting the cold outside—was I using all of it to try to create something like the contentment I enjoyed when we experienced these things together?
I don’t want this blog—I don’t want my life—to be a never-ending whine of “Woe is me.” I was busy with family and friends throughout December, and the January calendar is filling fast. So much is so good. But there are moments—fleeting but almost daily—when I can’t escape the grief because of what’s missing from the good. As a wise widower friend says, “I don’t have anyone to be alone with.”
Happy—and sad
I am very grateful, regularly happy—and often sad. Someone close to me, commenting on their difficult year, told me, “We’re soldiering on.” I could say the same about myself.
We’re following the advice of Emmy-award-winning Sterling K. Brown in his interview with Terry Gross on NPR. His words resonated with me:
When you try to stay in the moment, the next moment has a way of taking care of itself. When you try to project to the future and be “I hope I make it to this crescendo at the very, very end,” then you sort of wind up missing what’s happening just right now. Take it moment to moment in life, on stage, on screen. That’s usually the best recipe to get to the end of anything.
I’m deciding not to worry about crescendos. I’ll savor the privilege of these quiet moments and seek in them every ounce of joy and peace they can offer me.
One more privilege: partnering with Matt Proctor who has graciously given permission to share excerpts from his book Finish Line Faith in the Monday Meditations at this site.
The first of 12 appeared this week. They’re satisfying samples from a highly readable and helpful book I hope many visitors to this blog will be motivated to read for themselves.