winter and never Christmas

I just pondered some thoughts on joy and grief this morning. Yesterday I found snowdrops growing beside one of the honking big snow piles next to the house.

Snowdrifts.... that seem like they will never melt.
Snowdrops... that remind me that spring will come.

We have Aslan with us... it is the end of "winter and never Christmas"

It's just that right now, there's a hell of a lot of snow to melt. On the ground, and in my heart.

Just being real.

well, when you put it THAT way...

My spouse was just diagnosed (FINALLY!!!!) with ADHD. I had suspected it when our first child was diagnosed a few years ago, but when he brought up the topic with me, then his doc, our answers were both a resounding YES!

We have done the testing, the meds and the treatment has started. It isn't a magic bullet but drugs are really helping. I told him it was a matter of UNlearning brain patterns he has had for decades. It won't go away overnight.

He looked at me thoughtfully and said, "yeah. kinda like grief."

Well... when you put it THAT way...

YES.

Snow poem

I remember that she loved this poem. After tramping around in the snowdrifts this morning, I had to stop and blog it before going back to work.

Velvet Shoes
by Elinor Wylie

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as a white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

snowed under

We have not had the mail or the paper for five days (since we just got hit with 24+ inches of snow in a county that panics with 2 inches!) The lawyer called us and asked why we had not sent back some "time-sensitive" papers. We had to explain...

Nope. No mail. No papers. No deliveries. No power (back on now). And no snow plow either...

We were talking about how a storm of this magnitude would have scared her to death. How we would have worried (does she have heat? does she need groceries?) and wondered if we could get her safely to our house.

I miss her. Still.

Groundhog Day

Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? Where Bill Murray, a cynical meteorologist gets stuck in a "do loop" for what is a nightmare of repeated scenes, do-overs, etc. It's a funny movie, with a undercurrent message of self-improvement, leave the world better than you found it, etc.

Well I found myself in a Groundhog Day loop today. For the second month in a row, the retirement complex has not accepted their assignment as payee for the utilities, once we turned over the key. So the December bills came to us. Phone calls and letters to the village and all utilities brought assurances that "oh yes, ma'am, we'll take care of it."

And in today's mail? (drumroll, please....) All of the utility bills, forwarded AGAIN by the post office because the village has yet to change the payee on the account, and the utilities say that it is the village's responsibility to do that.

Move over Bill. I'm working on keeping my temper, being kind, and explaining the scenario over and over... sigh. Let's not have a Three-peat of this one, shall we??

Deep Peace

I have been wrestling with not being "at peace" and feeling an ache in my soul some days. (Of course, the ache isn't there all the time -- but on the days where the storm is high and there is no peace... my very human heart longs for it.)

So this morning I found a Sunday song posted by Sophia at RevGals and it just spoke volumes to me. And peace, that DEEP PEACE, is nestling.

Thank you for a fresh breath of air. And peace.

Gaelic Blessing arranged by John Rutter