Christmas Present

Merry Christmas!

This year, I've received the usual slew of Christmas letters from organizations I support. Their flavor has been different from the usual, as they address the uncertainty of these COVID times. My favorite included a new (to me) poem from John O'Donohue:

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

His words speak to my heart.

This will not be my first quiet Christmas.

Unlike many people I know, I will not spend it completely on my own. The kids moved on to their new place just a week ago - that's close enough for me to still include them in my COVID bubble. They will come over later today for the traditional John Christmas lasagna dinner. (Honorary Italians that we are...)

They won't stay long, we need to work around the baby's sleep schedule, but they will be here and that adorably stinkin' cute toddler will fill my heart with his presence. I will get to see him tear some wrapping paper, see if he pays any attention at all to the contents of the packages he opens. He will bring with him the promise of a good time to come where the air will be kind and blushed with beginning. 

Tomorrow, which I will spend alone, I will try to hold onto that promise, use it to kindle my own hesitant light. It's been an interesting week. I feel much the same mixture of churning emotions I did when I first sent my kids off to college. Joy mixed with sadness, leavened with pride and a bit of fear.

I've worked hard on the castle this past year. I'm not sure how one sends a house off to school, but my mixed feelings around letting go extend to the building. My hands have been an essential part of the effort to grant her a new life; to bring her back from the brink of falling apart at the seams. I am proud of the work I did. Almost all of my time since April has been spent there and it will take some time to shift gears, to begin to figure out (again!) how I want to spend my days; what I want to do when I grow up.

I will do my best not to let the wire brush of doubt scrape my heart as I work to find my sense of self; to find a new balance in my life. I get to start just after winter's solstice, with the promise of light returning. I get to start at Christmas time, with its story of new life in the darkness.

I get to start again - a chance stolen from too many this year by the blasted virus - and will, after lying low to the wall until the bitter weather passes.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!