Joy and paradox

the light is returning soon

I don’t know about you but this time and it’s heightened sense of calamity has me worn out. Like deeply and truly worn out. I realized last week as the news about tornados and Omicron poured in I just sort of blanked out when I read it. The stakes felt too high. The promises felt too wishy washy. And as I huddled in the hallway for a freak tornado warning (one that never materialized)  as my one year old spread her peanut butter sandwich all over me and I worried about her sister tucked in a basement with 80 other children I thought, oh I know this feeling. It is what it is like to hold paradox. It is the want and the drive to live, to notice and the wrenching of fear and grief.

I suppose I write this because I notice as the exhaustion ebbs and flows I watch my capacity to hold joy come and go with it.

We have been lighting candles each night this month, or least as often as I can remember. Sometimes the candles are are lit in the early morning when dawn is opening in its long blue trek across the sky.

I am holding joy in the paradox. The ungainly shaped package. I am watching the bright oranges of the willow branches reach out amongst the bare trees. I am making eye contact with the winter coyote for longer than is easy as we both walk our routes. I am letting my body be soft when I read the nighttime stories even as my feet are cold.

It is the dark time and we are being with the anticipation of the return of the light. That is uncomfortable for me and I find myself meandering off in my mind a lot. In just a few days the longest night of the year will be here and with a bit of luck everyone at my house will sleep deeply and for a long time until we are nudged awake by the day. And then we’ll begin our steps back towards more daylight, each day adding a few minutes.

Let us watch the light return together.

Xo,

C