we turned the page on the calendar, and...
my hall closet is crammed with coats. black wool coats, long and short. crisp spring toppers, fleece jackets and thin, hooded parkas. so many coats between my husband and me that we hang them on top of each other so they'll fit snugly, waiting to be pulled out when we need them.
you would think we could put the lightweight jackets away to make room for our winter coverings. but in the first month of this new year, i have worn practically all of them, some days changing out coats by the hour from fleece to topper to wool.
last week temps hovered in the teens, so wool it was, along with long johns and muffs for the ears. by the weekend, rain moved in with humid warmth and even the hooded parka was too much. the next week, the fog lay so thick by my mailbox that i could hardly see the street, so the jacket it was. today it's 60 degrees. tomorrow they're calling for snow.
i don't remember a winter this fickle, yet when we turned the calendar to 2014, we found the weather to be a mirror for what the month would be.
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i was so ready to turn the page, (and yes, i still do use a paper calendar), to bring out my 2014 planner and mark the squares with all the good things to be: a. trip to paris. paris! family visits (and not in the hospital), a new fitness routine. i was so ready to leave last year behind with all its changes and losses and move full force into hope.
on new year's eve, my husband and i found ourselves 500 miles apart, he making his resolutions alone in a Hampton Inn in Paduca, Kentucky, and me out with friends sharing ours at one of our favorite restaurants. his aunt was in the hospital, and since she has no husband, no kids, no siblings left, he was the only one to see about her. pull on the wool and prepare for winter.
on my way to dinner that night, i checked in with my son and learned he'd had great news at work. i felt the sun breaking through the clouds. on the first day of the year, i planned my trip to Paris. on the second, my husband headed home in a blinding snow storm. wool again. by the weekend, the temps hovered near 75 degrees, and all was steady, no coat required. then good news again: Aunt Betty left the hospital, and our daughter shared her own work milestone. i found myself thinking, well, maybe we can put our winter buffers away.
on the fourth day, we opened our home to the family of the newest priest at our church — or he would become one the following day— welcoming them with a warm fire and hot soup, filling our house with laughter that seemed to have been absent for too long awhile. on the fifth day, we witnessed as priests surrounded him with the powerful laying on of hands. all warmth and bright sunlight, hope.
on day 6 i had my annual mammogram, opting for the new digital kind, bracing myself for a minute discovery. but all was clear. on day 7, my great-niece celebrated her first birthday — steady winds and bright sun, little outerwear needed.
then on day 11, the wind shifted, and i felt myself pulling on my heaviest coat to brace for it: the dog and i hid in the hall bathroom as trees swayed and 65 mile-per-hour winds passed overhead. and just about that time (i later discovered) my boss was having a heart attack. he is 44 years old. day 13 brought triple bypass surgery for my friend, and hours of waiting and days of fear for wife, my friend, and his three young daughters. on day 14, a dear friend lost her husband, 66, to
. on yesterday we bid him farewell.
today the winds calmed. the sun came out. the boss's health has improved. things settled in the the family.
yet my coworker said she was tired. last week her dog almost died, had to be raised up in an oxygen chamber at the vet school, and today she felt the pieces of january weighed her down like a giant wooden puzzle.
we are just about done with it. january. a month i have loved for its fresh start, for the fact that my son was born at the end of it. but i'm weary, too, from all that has happened to those around me. i know the fatigue, the sadness and fear that grips them.
so i long for snow, the makes-you-stay-put kind, the watch-the-world-transform-into-swirls-of-white-and-crystal kind, that finds you pulling on that wool you are so tired of and heading outside. to hold your sleeve out just-so, to watch the tiny iced-jewels — each of them their own sculpture — rest on your sleeve, to show you that despite all, hope is there. God. Is. There.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
the third day
of course this is ridiculous. there is plenty of light inside me somewhere, but lately, it feels like i am almost choosing not to let it out.
on new year's eve as i left the grocery store, a woman walked through the doors with a smile stretching so wide across her face that i looked around to see what could be so delightful. turns out, nothing — she was simply smiling. i huddled to myself against the wind and aimed for the car, wondering just what could make someone walk around that happy, all the time. i was also well aware that my expression would bring a passerby the exact opposite question to mind: why would someone frown so?
i spent that day as i often do on the last day of the year, taking stock of the things i have done and ought not to have done, understanding that i am not as right or as true as i sometimes think i am. the last few months of 2012 found me using angry words against the very people i love most, distancing my children and friends, and the reality of that leaves me feeling mired in the weight of me.
in all of my thinking, i promised myself i would make the changes in this new year that would make me more loving, less critical, less judgmental. no longer would the glass be half full. and i would tell the truth when i screwed up, not making excuses for my bungling of so many situations. not anymore.
on the first day of this new year, it took me exactly two hours to learn that even in truth telling, i will always be a bit broken. sometimes, like in the past couple of days, it feels like most of me feels broken, shattered into minute shards like the ornaments that fell from my tree this year, and most often from my own doing. on other days, somehow, i'm cracked, but the cracks hold together.
i spent the second day of 2013 second-guessing every decision i have made, pretty much in my life, praying that surely it is not in my DNA to hurt others, over and over again. and if it is, asking how i might go about deleting this fatal flaw.
a good friend who knows my heart and life very well said she sees much light in me. she didn't know that i had wrangled with those very words, that image of myself, as i began this post five days before. she says that none of us is all good or all bad. we are mixed up parts of both, and everyone has days when the light does not show through.
like any strand of Christmas lights, some of the bulbs do burn out. i have spent hours, sometimes, going through a strand to find that one defective piece, removing one bulb after another until i just throw the whole thing out and start over. but i can't throw my whole self out because half the light in me seems at best, dim in these early days of 2013.
on the third day of the new year, i went about my way, walking the dog, checking off the details of my work day. i've said before that when you work at church, God is pretty much in every corner. so there is no escaping the broken pieces of self, nor more than you can escape the light that flickers, even in the shadows of a darkened nave. God is there and watching, waiting i think, for those calls for help.
at the end of the day, i sat with my friend/priest/boss and we talked it all through. i cried a bit. we prayed a good long prayer, me saying right out loud that i wasn't really sure it would work. he said, yes, in his experience, prayer worked in even those most extreme situations, to bring about reconciliation of self, of others torn apart. so we closed our eyes and prayed for light. for love. for healing.
i was late picking the dog up from doggie day care. as i waited for the kennel worker to bring him to me, i overheard a woman on the phone explaining that she would get to work as soon as she could, but she was in a domestic situation and was uncertain of how she would get there.
she had just dropped her dog off at the kennel for the first time, uncertain, too, of when she would be able to get him. she was about my age, a soft face and graying ponytail, and there was something about her that showed great beauty.
sometime in me wavered, but i heard myself say:
do you need a ride somewhere? where do you work?
at a gas station, not far from here, she said.
so a few minutes later, the dog and i invited donna into our car. the dog licked her, and she talked about her own dog, a pug, she had rescued not long ago, and how he was going blind.
he is in good hands, i told her. the best. they will care well for him.
as we drove down the dark highway toward the quick mart, she spoke of being escorted by police from her home earlier that day, the same place where her fiancé had tried to kill her in october. he'd been in jail but had posted bond and showed up. she called the police, left all of her belongings except for the dog and walked out with no place to go.
she had left him before, sleeping in her car in 23 degree weather, so as not to be hurt again. but she did go back. until yesterday. his court date was to be this morning, and she was to testify.
he thinks if i'm dead i can't testify against him, she said, and i felt my throat catch, my own trivial self-inflicted problems fading. this was a woman's life. her life.
i'm intelligent and educated and embarrassed that i have gotten myself into this situation, she said. things like this don't happen to me.
they happen to anybody. this is not your fault, i told her.
as we pulled into the lighted parking lot of her work, i told her about the shelter for women in her situation, a place where she could find food, clothing, shelter and support. the police had told her about it, but she didn't know how to contact them, so i offered to get the number. she wrote the number of the gas station on a sheet of paper, squeezed my hand and disappeared into the busy quick mart to begin her job overnight job.
at home i found the number, reading online that:
• One woman is abused every minute in the United States*
• that it takes seven attempts for a victim to successfully leave her abuser*
i thought of all the women right in my town who died in the last year at the hand of someone who was supposed to love them, one of them in a shopping center i frequent. i have been distanced from this world, i think, but on the third day of this year, a beautiful woman in the midst of this very crisis shared a ride and conversation with me.