Happy Winter's Solstice

This year, most years, in these darkest days of winter, I feel vulnerable.

I can't say I like the feeling. I prefer to pretend I'm in control of something more than the way I react to what happens in the world around me. I know it's not true, but I often pretend anyways. I pretend until the deepening cold of winter and the darkness of its days slice keenly through my pretenses, leaving me aware of my kinship to the babe in the manger; the one I was taught to adore as a child.

This year, I've felt tinier and more helpless than I have in many years. Climate change, and the pandemic still raging and mutating, feel so big. The toolbox of ways I have to help fix things feels, well, puny.

The drumbeat of doom is loud, unrelenting. Yet, yet. Beneath the roar, I can hear a tiny voice telling me to hope anyways. I ran across this tweet from Anne Lamott today; it fits my mindset:

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait, watch and work: you don't give up. So we take care of the poor today. We pick up litter in our neighborhoods and trails. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

She's right. You don't give up. Sometimes, these times, I am tempted to. But when I let my mind take that path, all I can see is the darkness spreading unchecked. I really don't like that mental picture.

So, I mentally switch paths. The path of stubborn hope feels better than the other. At the end of the day, I sleep better the days I know I haven't given up. As I drift off, a small glow of hope created by the good I've been part of during the day coalesces into light. Sometimes the light is flickering of a candle, sometimes it's the steady glow of a nightlight ready to safely guide my steps should I wake in the night.

I do so prefer the light over the darkness, so today, I'm not going to give up.

This, too, shall pass.

Tomorrow night, I will light candles of Joy, Peace, Love, and yes, Hope. I will know I made it this far, and so far, all is well. I will thank the darkness for the lessons it brings (I wouldn't call getting in touch with my vulnerabilities a bad thing...), and know the dawn will come. 

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

Seeking Advent

I've had trouble falling asleep the last several nights. I've been exercising, eating right, going to bed at my usual time, all that jazz. but the minute my head hits the pillow, the worries start circling. And these are not things I can do anything about.

I worry about the weather - it's too warm outside, and global warming is real. I worry about my friend Sharon, who is fighting cancer, about Bob and his memory issues. I switch back to concern for those who face eviction in the next few months and the effects of gerrymandering on political districts. I pray for the children caught in the crossfire of gun rights and adolescent angst. I fret about the next variant of the virus catching someone I love. I mentally relive the parts of the day where I could have done better; chastise myself for falling short yet again of some imagined standard regarding how I should spend my time.

I toss. I turn. I try relaxing the backs of my eyes and my hands and the top of my head and my hip. Eventually, I fall asleep, only to half-wake several times in the night, my dreams a medley of missed connections and elevators that don't have the buttons for the floor I need.

I think part of my problem is that I haven't taken time to heed the message of the Advent wreath this year. Which is too bad, because it's one of my favorite messages; one of the stories I want to hold on to from my years of church-going.

I haven't stopped to light a candle, to breathe. I've noticed the days getting shorter and shorter, and have a good grip on the concept of darkness, but I've been skipping the part where this is the time of year when we stop and wait for the light of the world, who will be born despite the darkness.

It's easy for me, this time of year, to get stuck in a spiral of negativity and doom. But the spiral can't suck me down without my permission, and today, I choose to change my direction.

No, I won't ever be able to return to 'before', whichever 'before' I care to mark time from, but that doesn't mean there isn't good in today. I've just been forgetting to look for it.. 

Hmph. I hate it when my trust issues sneak up on me like that.

Tonight, I will work to change the litany. Before I go to bed, I will pause for a moment before the flame of a candle or three and remind myself that while light can drive away the darkness, darkness cannot extinguish the light. 

I will remember the Peace of the glorious sunset I saw earlier this week. I will recall the Joy I saw on the face of the tot in front of me in line at the post office this afternoon - his dad and I sang the itsy-bitsy spider song to him as he did the finger motions. I will bring to mind the faces of Love in my life.

I will trust the world to turn as it was taught; that winter's solstice will arrive as scheduled.

I will nurture Hope, because I can.

Goodbye, Uncle Jerry

Jerry John
November 2, 1932 - November 24, 2021

Another of my dad's brothers has died. (Eight of the nine children in his family were boys.) Uncle Jerry is the third to die this year, leaving just Eugene to hold down the fort here on earth.

I took a detour and went up to West Virginia to visit Uncle Jerry and Aunt Katie while on my camper van trip. While I was there, he decided I was old enough to hear some of the darker family stories - about how Grandpa would get in a bad temper when drinking. How my dad, seven years older, would melt into the background to avoid being the target of his dad's anger. How Jerry had the opposite reaction - he'd stand up, yell back, and presumably take more than a few licks of the belt for his trouble.

It was hard hearing, but I'm glad he told me the stories.

I can't begin to know how that unhealthy family dynamic warped his soul, but I do know that, while he loved his children, he also ended up having conflicted relationships with them. He could be a hard man to love - but he and Katie (OK, I gotta be honest, I give Katie much of the credit for the way their kids turned out) raised four great kids.

His Catholic faith was an important part of his life. He was pretty sure he was on the one path to eternal life, and did his best to convince everyone he met to follow the same road. He could be abrasive about it, and when I talked to him, I worked hard to keep the topic from turning to religion.

These past few years, as dementia took his mind away, I hear tell he mellowed. A lot. He let go of his anger, his unyielding certainties. His smile became unguarded, open. He became an easier person to love. 

His youngest daughter, my cousin Gina, lived not too far away, and made sure her parents were well cared for. She and her sister Theresa were there with him as he died - she posted a video of the two of them singing his soul on to heaven. I watched his funeral service dry-eyed, but tears flowed freely as I watched the two of them holding his hands and singing one of his favorite hymns.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Jerry.

I hope you are with your Jesus now; that you've made peace with your dad. I hope you, your parents, Aunt Florence, and your brothers are all sitting around in a big circle, busy catching up on all that's happened since you last saw each other. 

I hope your heaven is all you hoped it would be.