Good Medicine

For many hours today I have been holed up, writing into the word document I talked about in the last post.  The one catching ALL of the unpolished thoughts, as they come to me, unedited and fierce and quiet.  That's the me in winter lately, making sense of life and the living of it.

I have been camped out in this one spot in a café, and at times feeling 'flowy' and forgetful about where I am, so inspiring is said word document.   Other times, I've felt like January is in my veins and breath and bones.  Like the cold is never going to leave, even though I'm warm right now.  It's a mindset.  One that many Minnesotans get used to.   Someone said it like that to me today, louder and with a few more curse words interspersed in the conversation.  I felt I agreed with the statement. 

The other side of me, the side that lives in Minnesota so happily for all of these years, really does love the snow.  Are other things in creation so unavoidably brilliant? 

Maybe the sky and sunrises. But snow is really just amazing on so many levels, and to live in such a beautiful world sometimes stops me in my tracks.  Despite trudging through the snow emergency-esque streets of Minneapolis today on the way into church, I was feeling that snow is still something that makes me marvel at God and wonder.  And I am glad for this feeling because sometimes people DON'T have that and they STILL live here.

 

I have had a few really awful/terrible pit in your stomach experiences in snow, like every Minnesotan close to 30 I am sure, where it was truly inconvenient to be dealing with it.  You know, like there's no way around it, and there you are in the ditch.  Or really stuck somewhere.  Or you hit a deer. Or the car is frozen shut.   I've already gone into the ditch this year.  So not thrilling.  And I've already been helped out by people in my little world and community in this time.  There are, you find, lovely helpful people around you most everywhere you go. 

By this age, thank you Dad, who knows winter survival like no body's business, I am at least well-versed in 'what to do next' when these things happen.

Positive spin.  Positive spin.  Positive spin.

Despite the cold, despite the prediction for more cold, despite the never ending conversation with people in this state about the weather (it just happened a little while ago again here as people were zipping their jackets, and I DID despair of this a LITTLE)......

I still like the snow. 

I think it is beautiful and good and so creative of God to show us the world like this. 

So I am compelled to write about things that make me grateful.  That's what the snow is doing to me. If I don't, I think I will hole up and continue to write things that are too too serious.

Here's what I'm grateful for today. 

- All of the hot coffee and tea which has accompanied me through this winter season
- Hard working students who, now in January, I feel that I KNOW
- The way the air smells in March when the world begins to thaw
- Bic Velocity pens - the best kind
- Surprise phone calls from far away friends
- Being able to sit in a boat on a lake and listen to the water
- People who draw out who you really are
- Staying power and conviction
- Certain colors of blue that almost look slate gray too
- 10 year long friendships
- People who are gracious
- That weird moment when you're falling asleep and you think to yourself, 'I'm thinking about falling asleep WHILE I'm falling asleep.'  (Is this just me??)
- Scones 

Well, that's what I've got.  It's good medicine for looking at the world closely but not being too serious about it all.  I advise looking out at the snow, trying to think it's interesting and fresh and beautiful, and maybe, making a list of your own too.