Cold

It’s cold and I walk out into it. Four degrees, but it feels like negative twelve. What does negative twelve feel like? Cold is cold. Okay, I am wrong. This is colder than cold. I bundle myself up. Leggings under pants. Boots. A T-shirt, sweatshirt, my long coat. A scarf wrapped around and around my hood so that only my eyes touch the air. 

The air hurts my eyes.  

Head lowered, I march up the street. Videos play in my head. Executions. A blond woman smiling through her car window. A thin bearded man holding a phone. The woman could be my daughter. The man could be my son. A little boy weighted down by a backpack, the darling ears knitted on his cap. He could be any of the little boys who play around the train table at my library. I am imagining scooping him up and running away with him. But where would we go? 

Let me tell you a story. 

Once, when I was a little girl, I went with my stepfather to an old barn. It was a hot day and the barn smelled like rotting wood and dust and maybe there used to be cows here, but now it was overstuffed with junk and broken machinery and old-fashioned furniture. I made my way over to an old desk, the kind with a top that rolled back and many drawers and secret-looking compartments. I opened one of the drawers, and something squealed inside. 

It was a nest of mice. Babies squirming in dust and bits of paper. Their twitching paws and twirly tails. Their teeny eyes flickering open. Disturbed. Afraid. Afraid of me, probably, for opening their drawer. But they had nothing to be afraid of. I was a little girl, and instantly in love. How small these baby mice were. How adorable. I cooed at them. I smiled. I wanted to take them home with me. Dress them in my doll clothes. Arrange them on the little beds in my dollhouse. Look! 

Mice! I said to my stepfather. 

And he yanked out the drawer and snatched up the mice in one fist and threw them against the barn wall. I learned everything I needed to know about evil people when I was eight years old. 

The rest of it, the part about the good people, would take me longer to learn. Sometimes, you close your eyes and hear the mouse bodies hitting the wall, and it's easy to forget. But I am here to tell you, don’t forget. 

We are cold today, even in all of our many layers, but we will keep walking. 

Healing

A few days ago, I had surgery on my hand. My right ring finger had what is called a trigger finger. What happens is when you try to bend your finger, it clicks down and snaps up. It didn’t hurt, but it was annoying, and for a year I couldn’t properly hold a pencil. 

I did all the things you’re supposed to do to fix it—an injection, physical therapy, and wearing an adorable little brace, but none of that worked and it was time for surgery. The surgeon explained the entire procedure to me, and I instantly forgot everything he said. 

Something about clipping cartilage. Or maybe it was a tendon. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about, so I agreed to let him cut into me. Before they wheeled me into surgery, he came in to see how I was doing. He was wearing an oversized coat. I said, Are you cold? He said, I’m freezing. This made me laugh. It was the last thing I was thinking about before I went under.

When I woke up, I felt like I had a brick strapped to my arm. My fingers were swollen and orange. It’s the antiseptic soap they clean you with before surgery, my husband told me. It was his birthday. We were celebrating by having him serve me meals and tie my shoes and wash my hair. Also, he learned my skin care routine. 

Later, we took the dog for a walk, and he scooped up the poop. I don’t know if I can adequately express how much I am in love with this man. For three days now, he has brewed me tea and parked next to me on the couch while I marinate in pain pills. 

A side effect of the pain medicine is extreme gratitude and whatever the opposite is of nostalgia. What I keep thinking about is the time I broke my arm when I was twelve. Breaking my arm was only one of the many crappy things that happened to me that year. How I did it was I fell off a skateboard. 

I was not a skateboarder. I literally had never stepped on one before, but for some reason, we had a skateboard in our basement, and I raised my foot and thought: I want to try this. The next thing I knew I was falling backward. When I landed on my hand, I felt my wrist bone snap. 

The pain was crazy-making, but it was hard to convey this to the people in authority. You had to use precise language and not be overly emotional. If you were wrong, well, you would’ve wasted everyone’s time and money. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find out my arm was broken. 

I liked wearing a cast because all of my friends signed it, and I didn’t have to do my school assignments. But that was a downside too because even when I was twelve, I was a writer, and the cast was slowing me down. There was so much language to learn. So many emotions to bury and unbury. 

I scrawled out my journal entries with my left hand and then gave up and used my typewriter, tapping on the keys with the fingers of my unbroken hand, one letter at a time. One word. 

It is how I am writing to you now. The keyboard is smoother than a typewriter and my fingers are more practiced. Still, it takes time. I drift off. I drift back. Sometimes lost in the past, then like a miracle, safe in the present. 

A warm house. A cup of hot tea. 

 

I Went to a Protest

The protest was in my neighborhood, a three-minute walk from where I live. It was raining. I knew the protest was going on, and I didn’t want to go, but then I did. I don’t know how many of these I’ve been to over the past ten years. 

The big one, the Women’s March in DC in 2017, the Black Lives Matter protests during the pandemic when we all stood six feet apart and sweated behind our masks. Marches against gun violence and Kings. Rallies in support of women’s rights and LGBTQ and immigrants. A rally for public libraries.  

I used to be gung-ho about protests. I would yell and wave my sign. After a while I stopped yelling. This time I didn’t bother bringing a sign. I am angry, but it’s a diffused kind of anger that is more on the sad side. I don’t have the belief anymore that protesting accomplishes anything by itself. 

I have a body, though, and I can plant myself in a crowd and be one more person if anyone decides to count us. In the crowd you are reminded that you are not alone. You stand side by side with these strangers, and suddenly, they’re not strangers anymore. They’re your neighbors. They’re angry and sad too. Of course, we all feel angry and sad. We witnessed a person’s murder. 

After the protest, I went home and did a frenzy of cleaning and purging, carting boxes of stuff off to Goodwill. Old games no one plays anymore, old suitcases (why do we have so many suitcases?) A tub of stuffed animals, which weirdly had me reminiscing, fondly, about the early weeks of the pandemic, when someone in the neighborhood asked if people would put teddy bears in their windows. 

She said her kids were restless and scared and they were taking a lot of walks, and wouldn’t it be nice if they could go on a kind of teddy bear hunt. I loved this idea and quickly gathered all of our old stuffed animals and set them up in the windows, and then it was like a parade of sorts, the whole neighborhood, it seemed, out and waving at bears.  

People were walking in family groups back then, everyone staying respectfully socially distant. I went for a lot of walks too, crisscrossing the street whenever another group came toward me. You wouldn’t believe how many houses had stuffed animals in their windows. It made me want to cry.

Once I came upon a child’s birthday party, a porch decorated with balloons and streamers, a little girl standing on the front steps, smiling at her friends as they drove by and dropped off presents. Another time I stood with the dog and listened to a man tutor a middle school aged boy. He was sitting in a chair on one side of a front lawn and the boy was sitting in a chair on the other side. They were working through a math problem together.   

I don’t know why I keep forgetting that there is more good in the world than bad. Okay, maybe it’s closer to a fifty-fifty ratio, and the good only beats out the bad by a sliver, but the sliver is what we have to hold onto. 

The people who delight in harming others would like nothing better than for us to join them. But something I learn at every protest is that we are not the ones who are afraid. 

We are the ones who stand with our neighbors. 

This Isn't Working for Me

I said this to my friends at 10 pm on New Years Eve. Our quarter-of-a-century-long tradition is to stay up until midnight, watch the ball drop, and make a toast with champagne. But I was half nodding off at 9:30. I didn’t particularly want a glass of champagne. My body was saying go to sleep. 

My head, when it tipped and drooped and bonked against my shoulder, was saying it too. In the past, I might’ve fought it. Who wants to be a party pooper? Why not buck up and press through? On the other hand, maybe it’s okay to go to sleep when you want to go to sleep. This isn’t working for me, I said, and I laughed. 

I laughed because it made it easier to say, and (I hoped) it made it easier for my friends to hear. I have been trying an experiment. Being honest with myself. You would think this would be a thing that wouldn’t be hard. I used to think that too. But then, I was lying. 

Here’s what happens when you lie: Your eyes twitch. You get stomach cramps and migraines. One time, you break out in a rash. Another time, you throw up on a plane. The biggest lie of all is saying you are completely fine. You can handle this. You don’t need help. 

Anyway, I got help, and now, most days, I feel okay. The next night we were soaking in a hot tub.  

I was amazingly well-rested. The house where we were staying to celebrate New Years was on a lake. The lake was right there, only yards away from the hot tub, and I was in love with the view. This was an Airbnb and the owners had mentioned in the guestbook that we would see the sunset over the lake. The sunset (and I quote the owners) “will make you cry.” 

Every night while we were there, we rushed out as the sun was setting, and every night we just missed it. I don’t know how this kept happening. It was the trees in the way. It was the sun slipping behind them too fast. If you blinked, it was over. But now, in the hot tub, we had renewed hope. We were talking about the past year. The lows, which were very low. Serious illnesses and surgeries and estrangements and all of that set against the crazy backdrop of the world. 

But then, there were the highs. A wedding and fun travels and good times spent with family and friends. This quarter of a century long friendship, too, ranks right up there. Forget the sunset. When I think about these people, it’s love and gratitude for them that makes me cry. The conversation moved onto other things. 

What we would have for dinner. A funny game we wanted to play. Our favorite books and TV shows. Our kids. Our jobs. Our pets. My fingers were pleasantly pruny. The sky went orange and then pink. I lost myself for a moment in the lake, the sun, the steam. This is working for me, is what I was thinking. 

I wish I had said it. 

No Escape (but that's okay)

Every year the day after Christmas, my family goes to an escape room. If you haven’t been to one of these, imagine being locked in a room for an hour with a bunch of puzzles to solve. The puzzles are logic and word games and math. Also, there are secret doors and boxes and keys. You can ask for clues. 

But my family doesn’t like to ask for clues. We pride ourselves on being able to figure our way out with no help, and we ALWAYS win the game. 

Okay, except for one year, which we call The Year of the Zombie. What happened was the escape room was the usual, but on top of having to solve the puzzles, there was a zombie chained to the wall. If he touched you, you were out of the game, and every ten minutes, his chain would extend by a foot. By the end, we were all screaming and huddling in one corner. And, I forgot my reading glasses. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was some of the puzzles were broken! There was no way any of us could’ve solved them! (We don’t count that year.) 

This year the twist was we were the ones chained up. At the beginning of the game, the attendant handcuffed each of us to a bed frame in the center of the room. The hour clock started ticking, and if we wanted to solve any of the puzzles or try to unlock anything, we had to shuffle around all together dragging the bed along with us. To make things even more difficult, the room was dark and there was only one small lamp, and it was hard to reach with our handcuffed hands. 

Finally, like thirty minutes in, our son-in-law noticed a key hanging on the wall, and we all carted the bed across the room to get it. It was the key to unlock the handcuffs, but it took a while to free ourselves, and the time was winding down, and we knew if we wanted to get out, we’d have to ask for help. 

Clue after clue after clue, and it wasn’t enough. We lost. This is clearly a metaphor. 

Everyone stuck together and no way out unless you admit you need help, and even then, you still run out of time. We had fun though. 

We went home and played more games. Then I worked a shift at the library, and this has nothing to do with anything, but one of our regular patrons came in to read the newspaper how he does every day. This guy and I have a history with each other. A few years ago he made a complaint that I was “very loud.” I had been helping another patron who was hard of hearing, and admittedly, I was shouting. 

This annoyed the guy who wanted to read the newspaper. After the incident, I didn’t want to deal with him, and I can’t speak for the guy, but I think he had a similar feeling about me. He would rush into the library and scuttle along the edge of the room to avoid the information desk where I was sitting, and I wouldn’t say good morning to him how I usually had. 

A few days of that, and I let it go and started saying good morning again even as he was scuttling along the wall. We did this for a year. Another year went by when the library was closed for renovations. When we reopened, the guy walked through the door normally and passed the desk. I said good morning, and he nodded, but I still felt a twinge of tenseness between us. Six more months passed. 

The other day, when I was shelving, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and truthfully, I was relieved I wasn’t at the desk, and we wouldn’t have to go through our awkward Good-morning/nod dance, but then, the guy surprised the heck out of me by walking straight toward me. He stopped a few feet away and smiled. 

Happy New Year, he said. 

I smiled back and said, Happy New Year to you. 

He walked off to the newspapers, and I blinked at the bookshelves. I don’t know why, but I was tearing up. There is a metaphor in here too, but I will leave you to puzzle it out. 

In the meantime, I wish you too, dear Reader, a happy new year, whoever you are and where, however you celebrate, or don't. I suspect the world for many of us may feel stressful this year, and never mind the potential for zombies and crochety patrons. We're stuck with them, but we have each other too, and that is not a small thing. 

It's everything, actually.  

On the Shortest Day of the Year

On the longest day of the year, we had a party, and randomly, everyone brought pink wine. Someone made an elaborate Stonehenge sculpture out of Rice Krispie treats and it almost seemed a shame to eat it, but we did. We lit the paper lantern lights and lounged out on the patio and told each other stories. It was 9 pm and the sun was still up, and I quoted a line from The Great Gatsby that is forever stuck in my head: 

“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.” 

We were having the party because we didn’t want to miss it. To keep the conversation going, I asked a question. The question came from a friend who had been hiking the Appalachian Trail. She said one topic that none of the hikers ever get tired of talking about is food. The question is: What’s the best meal you ever had? 

My best meal took place in Memphis, Tennessee thirty-five years ago. My husband and I were invited out to a fancy restaurant by one of his work clients. This was the kind of place that serves multiple courses and there is no rush to eat them. We had never been to a place like this, and we were trying to play it cool. We were young and silly and wide-eyed and took it for granted that we had all the time in the world.  

When we were just settling in, the waiter took our drink order and said he knew we weren’t thinking about dessert yet, but he wanted to tell us about one of the items on the menu because it would take at least an hour to prepare. He went on to describe an enormous piece of chocolate cake. Nestled inside was a ball of chocolate, and throughout the meal, the pastry chef would slowly warm the cake in the oven, and when he brought it to our table, and we slid our forks into it, the perfectly melted chocolate would swirl out onto our plates. 

Everyone at the table ordered the cake. But by the time we finished the meal, course after course after course, we’d forgotten about it. When the waiter carried it to the table, even though we were all stuffed from dinner, we gasped with delight. It was exactly how he described. That fork slide, that swirl of melted chocolate. 

The funny thing is I don’t remember if it tasted good. I mean, it must have, right? But it’s the story I love. The detailed set up, the slow build, and everything turning out exactly how you hope.   

On the shortest day of the year, I am not throwing a party. We won’t lounge outside and we won’t drink pink wine. I don’t have a quote stuck in my head about it, but if I did, it would be something along the lines of: We are here, now, all of us together. Let’s not waste a moment. 

I’ll make you a cup of tea and we’ll cozy up inside and watch the sun slip down at 5:10 pm. I’ll ask you to tell me a story about what you love about today. 

And you will.

Hurtling through the Holidays

...and my to-do list was spooling out in my head, all the million little things to do. The presents to buy, the meals to plan, the Christmas cards to send out, the house to clean in preparation for guests. But the usual urgency wasn’t there. I was nursing a cold on top of a cold, and then I gifted that to my husband, and we were both trudging around the house cradling our Kleenex boxes. 

We joked about not putting up the tree. I mean, why? In a few weeks we’d be taking it down. But then I don’t know what happened. We hauled the Christmas stuff up from the basement. We watched Diehard. (Yes, it is a Christmas movie.) We bought presents for the family we sponsor at our local community center. Both kids needed winter coats and it was killing me how cute the little coats were. I played the Charlie Brown Christmas music and set the pot on the stove with the orange peels and cinnamon sticks. 

This is one of the ideas in the Hygge book that my daughter gave me a few Christmases ago. Hygge is a Danish thing where, instead of fighting the winter season, you go All In on it. You can do this by either hunkering down cozily with blankets and books and warm beverages and fragrant scents wafting from a pot on the stove, or else, you can bundle up and go cross country skiing. Needless to say, I lean more toward the hunkering down option. 

I crossed Christmas cards off the to-do list. How I accomplished this task was I decided not to do it. I read a book. I listened to a podcast about the history of Santa. I lost myself for an hour, scrolling through pictures from Christmases past. Most of the Christmases past are a blur. I wasn’t a person who lived in the present. I was planning and whirling and out of breath. Sometimes I hid in the bathroom. 

After, I would remember with an ache in my heart all the lovely moments I’d only been half paying attention to. 

The years whirred by, but something nice: the lovely moments added up. I have thousands of them now that I can revisit whenever I want to. But what I want is to make more lovely moments. And I want to be there, fully present, for each one. 

Yesterday it snowed again, and all of the plans we had for the weekend flew out the window. We took a walk during the height of the storm. There’s a small, newly planted tree at the end of our street by the Starbucks. Last summer a truck plowed through and tore up the sidewalk. There were weeks of construction, but somehow the new sidewalk got torn up again, and the whole thing had to be redone. When it was finally finished, someone planted the small tree. 

It looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, my husband said, when we clomped by it in the snow. We should decorate it. 

I laughed because I was thinking of the mysterious Yarn Bomber lady who lives in our neighborhood and sometimes, overnight, she will decorate a light pole with a colorful, knitted sleeve. 

What if there was a Christmas Bulb Bomber, I said.

What if it was us, my husband said. 

Why not? 

How you stay present is you stop thinking for a second and take the world in through your senses. Cold wet snow pelting your cheeks. Flakes on your tongue. The crunch of boots. The smell of coffee drifting out of the Starbucks drive thru window. 

Silver bulbs dangling on the branches of a tree.