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Happy Days

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I have struggled writing this post. I have not been one to ’embrace’ change for most of my life. But perhaps that is a story I tell myself, that I have accepted from those around me who are comfortable placing that belief on my head. ‘Change’ is a huge word encompassing many scenarios and situations, and when I look back over my decades of life, I don’t think it’s a true statement to say I don’t embrace change. What matters to me, and probably to most people, is the kind of change.

Change can take a person by surprise in sudden ways that leave your mind confused and reeling and your body in a panic—a sudden death, a natural disaster, a fatal diagnosis, or an unprovoked war like the Ukrainian people are experiencing. Those sudden changes are so disorienting that we often try to ‘control’ our environment and our thinking so as not to be so shocked ever again. It’s a trauma response. But change can also be anticipated, expected, and slow. It can be dreamed about, planned for, and embraced by one’s whole being. I know both sides of that coin.

March always brings the Spring Equinox but does not always let go of Winter. But last Sunday’s weather forecast showed me that March was ready to loosen her fingers on the snow and cold that had gripped Central Minnesota for almost four months. But first, before the warm-up, on Monday we had another snow!

Anticipating the melting snow, I decided to take pictures through the week to show the changes. On Monday, I found myself singing, “Sunday, Monday, happy days, Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days…”* Lol—where did that come from?!

By Wednesday, the Monday snow was gone, grass was beginning to show around the tree trunks, deer tracks sank through the soft, slushy snow, and the bench and chairs around the firepit began to lose their ‘leg warmers.’

There had been a couple nights that had stayed above freezing, so the snow seemed to go quickly (relatively speaking). By Friday, larger patches of grass emerged, and some of it looked green! It’s funny how we ‘forget’ things when the landscape is covered with snow for so long—like rocks, grass, gravel, and green, green moss. A flock of snow geese flew over, heading north. More snow disappeared around the firepit, and puddles of reflecting water formed around the slush. Wispy spring clouds trailed across the blue sky. “Thursday, Friday, happy days…”*

“Goodbye grey sky, hello blue…”*

At dusk, I saw a deer run across the front yard and join his friend who was lying in the tall, dry grass. That must have felt good after months of sleeping in the snow!

“Saturday, what a day!”* Temps dipped to 17 degrees Friday night, so the moisture-rich air left a frosty coating on things Saturday morning. Then the temperature soared to 48 degrees!

And Sunday brought sunshine and temps in the 50’s! One week of snowing and melting. Changes. Happy Spring!

Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote, “There is nothing permanent except change.” I understand his urging of us humans to accept that change happens all the time. There is a constancy about Nature’s changing seasons that is sustaining to me, even as the slow tide of evolution marches on. It feeds into my desire for there to be a steady, overarching sense of stability in the world. God knows we all need it, and for that, I thank God. It is a challenge for us, the people of the world, to respond to the traumatic change people are going through—we cannot forget the very basic human needs of safety, understanding, caring, and love, along with food, shelter, and livelihood.

I love Winter—the cold and the snow—and I am a little sad to see it go. But it is time, and I look forward to all that Spring brings to us. I mean, I was singing Happy Days to myself! “These happy days are yours and mine!”*

*Happy Days lyrics written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox

A Mixed Bag

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For our fresh air and sunshine walk last weekend we went to Mississippi River County Park. This being the messy, melting, still snowy time of year, we prepared ourselves for some slogging and sliding. Instead of slipping down the icy hill to the River, we walked around a nearly-melted open field to get to trails on the topside. The melted snow had congregated into a large pool of water around a sprawling tree—we trekked through the ankle-deep water at the edge of the woods. At first I thought my waterproof boots were no longer waterproof as a wave of cold overtook my feet—luckily I was wrong and still dry-footed. The trails were a combination of snow, ice, mud, water, and dry ground—what a mixed bag, I thought.

The ‘southern’ part of the trail, where sunshine could do its work, was muddy and mostly clear of snow. The warmth of the sun felt like a delicious hug, and my coat choice seemed a bit overcautious as I heated up. We passed a pond of thick ice that had a melted sheen of water glistening on its surface, the old tracks of animals crossing over it still marked in the ice.

Cross-country ski trails were still prominent in the slushy snow where only a week ago, the skiers had inches of fresh snow to glide through. A warm week had made fast work of the melting.

As we looped around to the north side of the park where trees met the River, there was much more snow, and in places, it even crunched under our feet. I was glad for my warmer coat on this stretch of the trail.

The River was also a mixed bag—a thick expanse of snow by the shore was still shaded from the sun by tree shadows. A palette of blues, whites, and grays showcased the melting River ice in all its states.

Back at the picnic shelter, after slowly making our way up the icy hill from the River, we found a message by a chalk artist: “Life can be a little crappie”…

Life can be a little Crappie

and in small letters and parentheses…”sometimes.” It’s a little fishy play-on-words—if you don’t know better, you read it as ‘crappy’ even though the fish name Crappie is pronounced ‘croppy.’ So the artist gave us something to smile about and something to admire, along with an acknowledgement that sometimes things are messy, difficult, or just a little crappy.

Three feet from the fish artwork was a green picnic table with graffiti carved into it:

‘Mixed bag’ is an idiom from the turn of the twentieth century derived from a hunting term that refers to an assortment of birds killed in a single hunting session and put into a bag they carried for game. A mixed bag is an assortment, a mixture, a miscellaneous collection of things often having both positive and negative qualities or aspects. Our hike last week was a mixed bag of trail conditions. Our lives this past Covid year have been a mixed bag in all sorts of ways. There have been lots of crappy things about the year—and you don’t need me to reiterate them—and there have been lots of surprisingly wonderful things, too. Positive, neutral, and negative, an assortment and a mixture, sometimes life is a little ‘crappie,’ and life is good.

A Sure Sign

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Have you ever looked back at a season or a year and wondered how you got through it? I’ve had a few of those times in my life. A number of things had happened in this last year, when I felt like I was at the bottom of a dog pile on a football field where heavy body after heavy body slammed down on me and crushed my body and spirit. I was trying to hold on to the ball, but at times I couldn’t even tell where the ball was, whose hand was on it, or if I would breathe again.

I’m not sure my eyes had even opened yet when I heard it—the sound of Spring. As the day was just beginning to show the pale faintness of light, I heard birds chirping. I love waking to that glorious sound after the silent winter. It is a sure sign that Spring is on its way. Even though we had blustery snow showers that first singing day, the next day was sunny and in the forties. The snow melt continued in earnest.

The sun is noticeably stronger and higher in the sky now, and even on days below freezing, it dissolves the snow away from the driveway.

It’s not a pretty time of year as all the dirt and grime crusts on top of the melting snow, but there is that promise of green grass.

As the snow melts, I’m always intrigued to see the evidence of all the little creatures who spend their winter under the snow. They must be happy to see the sun, too!

The circles of warmth around the trees show that it’s time to wake up from the cold hibernation of Winter.

A female Downy Woodpecker flitted from tree to tree. Like me, she may be thinking “I made it through Winter!”

There was even a puddle of water in the birdbath for the birds, as Nature’s ice and snow sculpture melted.

We still have a ways to go…

That was Friday. The weekend has been warm and sunny. The snow banks have pulled farther away from the driveway and trees. The snow has softened and hardened at the same time—softened the frigid, rigid architecture that held the trillions of snow crystals together in a Winter palace and hardened the snow pack by compressing the air pockets and sinking the snow.

Spring is in the air, in the birds, in the snow, and in me. Looking back, I wonder how I made it through, how I got out from under the snow pile of heaviness. Looking back, there were circles of warmth from people who helped me on a certain day at a certain time, and that warmth sustained me for a few more days. One day at a time, one hour at a time, if need be. But I also realize that somehow I did manage to hang on to the ball—like the benevolent hand of God who believes in us all, helped me do so. The Spring will come. The birds will sing again. The grass will turn green. I still have a ways to go, but I see the Sun, I hear the birds, I am waking up, and I can breathe again.

Distraction by Stars

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{Caveat: This post is a distraction from what’s really happening in Nature right now in Minnesota.}

The night sky and stars have been amazing the last couple of nights!  Orion is front and center out our living room window when I turn out the lights and have my last look out at Nature.  Most of our snow has melted, so it is darker outside than it usually is at this time of year.  The stars are crisp and bright, and I inevitably start singing to myself, “The stars at night are big and bright….deep in the heart of Texas.  The prairie sky is wide and high….deep in the heart of Texas.  The sage in bloom is like perfume….deep in the heart of Texas.  Reminds me of the one that I love….deep in the heart of Texas.”  My Dad used to sing this when I was growing up, especially when we were riding in the car at night when the stars were shining brightly.  I remember joining in and clapping loudly on the four counts between lines.  Our wide and high prairie sky with the bright stars was in South Dakota, and I used to imagine that Texas couldn’t be any better than our prairie sky.

Deep in the Heart of Texas was written in 1941 by June Hershey with music by Don Swander.  It was first recorded by Perry Como, then soon after made into a film by the same name and sung by Tex Ritter.  Gene Autry, Bing Crosby, Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans, George Strait and Nickel Creek have recorded the song over the decades.  The University of Texas Longhorn Band performs the song before each football game, and right down there, in Austin, Texas, lives one that I love.  Our daughter Emily lives deep in the heart of Texas.  The last time we saw her was for her Texas Hill Country wedding sixteen months ago.  So now the stars remind me of the song, the song reminds me of my Dad, and the words remind me of Emily.

I’m looking forward to summer when Emily and Shawn will be coming north for a visit!  I hope it won’t be too hot and humid like it was for parts of last summer.  Too hot and humid in Minnesota terms, that is, because we can usually sail through summer without air conditioning.  (We had six days of 90 degrees and above during the summer of 2016.)  Of course Austin is a hot place to live, in more ways than one.  Winter temperatures are often warmer there than summer ones here, so maybe I have nothing to worry about.

 

Distraction—the state of being diverted or drawn away; mental distress or derangement; that which distracts, divides the attention or prevents concentration; that which amuses, entertains, or diverts; division or disorder by dissension or strife.

It is unnerving for me to be writing this when the mid-February temperature outside in Central Minnesota is 57 degrees, nearly 30 degrees above average, with a forecast for five more days in the fifties.  It troubles me that I see green grass when we usually have a snow pack of at least half a foot in February.  It disturbs me to read that we have had above average temperatures for eighteen months in a row now.  Two weeks ago lake ice was sturdy and thick and now there’s open water.  This is where distraction comes in.  We all do it—social media, tv, computer, phone—those ‘entertaining’ things that take up our time and divert our attention from what is happening in real time in our own space.  We think about the past, how ‘good’ things used to be, and wish we could get back those feelings we think we had back then.  We dream about the future, imaging the great things that are going to happen….someday.  We affirm our own feelings—I love this warmer weather, no snow to shovel, no bitter cold—not looking beyond ourselves at the big picture.  We dismiss the facts—those meteorologists never get things right or back in 1889 it was this warm on this day; it happens.  We appease ourselves with ‘at least’ and ‘could be worse’ and ‘you worry too much.’  Nobody wants to feel troubled or unsafe or disturbed.  No one wants to feel that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.  It is horrible to feel helpless in the face of anything too big or overwhelming.  Nobody likes to acknowledge the red flags that are flying in our face.  So we distract ourselves with things that ‘make sense,’ with noble causes, with food, drink, or other addictions, with fun things, with relaxing things that we deserve.  

So what should we do?  One thing is fairly certain–the problem doesn’t go away while we are distracted.  It lurks in the background of our lives and shows up at inopportune times.  Gabor Mate writes that we need a balance of positive and negative thinking.  He says, “Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly … at what does not work.”  “Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality.  It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever the full truth may turn out to be.”*  Awareness of what is, acceptance of what is, and autonomy to take action and do the right thing.

 

*From the book ‘When the Body Says No’ by Gabor Mate, M.D.