Snow

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We are at the point in Winter when many people proclaim they are “over it.”

I get it.

There is just over a week left in February. We’ve been experiencing the cold, snow, and ice for several months now. This Winter in Minnesota has been especially unique, with its relentless levels of snow (there are giant piles of it everywhere you look) and its completely inescapable ice.

Today, as I walked with my Yaktrax secured on the bottom of my boots, I nearly fell several times, but caught myself…until, right near the end of my walk, I just went DOWN, quickly.

Walks have been like this nearly all Winter.

Usually, these treacherous conditions are mostly present nearer the end of the season, in the transition to Spring, during the freeze/thaw cycles that create plentiful water from melting snow and ice, then new ice when that water refreezes, and so on.

I’ve fallen to the ground several times already this year.

Our car has struggled just to get places we need to go.

Simply getting around has been challenging.

And now, as I write this, a massive storm/blizzard is headed our way. Over the past few days, the meteorologists have been speaking about this storm in a way that makes me think they’re not going to be wrong this time. Apparently, all of the models they use have been pointing to this storm’s arrival, and its likelihood of at least one, maybe up to two (!) feet of snow is almost assured.

With those kinds of numbers, of course, they’re telling us this storm looks headed into the Top Ten of largest storms of all time in Minnesota, perhaps even the Top Five.

Knowing all of this ahead of time, before it even starts, is an interesting experience.

You can kind of imagine what it will be like…but not exactly. You actually have no idea what to expect, really. Yet, the way everyone talks about it certainly has the power to shape your expectations.

What has been apparent to me, in this experience, is that we are SO not in charge. Many people have been throwing their hands up, saying they can’t take it anymore, saying they want Winter to be done.

But we live in Minnesota.

And it is February 20th.

And Winter is very much not done yet.

So really, why are we spending one bit of our precious energy spinning in that kind of feeling/thought tornado? What a waste, ultimately, right? Energy expelled and spun-out to no productive end. There is literally nothing we can do to stop this storm from coming. So. Why not just embrace it?

Is there really another alternative?

Besides spinning ourselves into a tizzy and creating a storm within the storm for ourselves?

I’ve been through so many storms already this Winter.

I don’t need or want to create any more.

So I will embrace and be grateful for the snow to come.

Happiness: Journey or Destination?

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Happiness

Happiness.

So many people seek it — but do we really know what we’re seeking?

My husband and I are in the middle of a search for a house to buy. This will be our first. We’ve rented many homes, but we have yet to buy one. Finding a rental had plenty complexity. Sometimes I thought that we treated finding a rental as seriously as some people approach buying!

But this is different.

This feels much more permanent. And weighty. Even as much as we say to each other that we don’t have to be locked into this home we buy forever (which, I think we’re hoping, could perhaps take some of the pressure off of this one purchase), and as much as we say that we could move within a few years… I really don’t think we will. I have a strong feeling that we will live in this house — whatever this house ends up being — for a long time.

Home.

Home means so many things. Home is a refuge. Home is comfort. Home is the place where your family gathers, where bonds are strengthened. Home is the place you return to, again and again, no matter how long or far you’ve been away. What do we want that “home” to be for us, this round — and perhaps for many years into the future? When you start to think like that, this search becomes so much more than just one for a roof over our heads, four walls to protect us from the elements outside.

How does our home search relate to our happiness — both potential and current?

Well. My husband and I have different approaches, different processes, for a weighty decision like this. He is very plodding, very careful, very analytical, very slow. I prefer efficiency, decisiveness, action. To me, it feels like he’s dragging his feet and will never make a decision. To him, it seems like I’m being hasty and imprudent. This is our process, in this big life move. Yin and yang. Push and pull. He says the tension is healthy, but I’m tiring of it.

And herein lies the rub. How much is happiness a process — and how much is it a destination?

When we imagine our home (whatever and wherever it is), we imagine ourselves happy there. How important is it that we are happy on our way to there? The tension of our different styles does not feel happy to me. I get frustrated. I feel stress. What I wonder is, will that all just fade into distant memory, once we’re in a home we love? Will I even care about this process and how it felt, in ten, fifteen, twenty years? Does it matter?

I don’t have the answer to those questions. And I wonder if I won’t have them until we have bought our house and felt happiness there. Maybe that will be the perspective I need.

What do you think? Does the process, or the journey, to a destination matter? Do you think happiness is a journey… a destination… or some parts of both? And what are ways you have found to maximize your happiness and joy while you are in a transition phase (which can often be the hardest time(s) to feel happy)?

Passing Time

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Lately I’ve been reflecting on the passage of time.

For one, it’s been a while since my last entry here. In some ways, that feels like a lifetime ago. And in others, it feels like yesterday. So much has happened and changed since then…and yet, I still have this same quiet place to come and reflect in the same way, as if no time has passed at all.

I took the photograph above in early November — right in the thick of the transition from Autumn to Winter, before anybody was ready for snow. Clearly, this tree wasn’t ready.

But you know the funny thing?

The date is now December 3rd. About a month later, that tree has still not dropped its leaves. Winter will become as official as it can be in eighteen days, come the Winter Solstice. Will it still have the leaves then? I really wonder.

You’re guessing I’m using this as a metaphor, I bet. If so, you’d be right.

We humans so often struggle with time. Preparing for something, we feel like we don’t have enough of it. Anticipating something, we feel like it cannot move fast enough. When we aren’t sure whether or not something will work out or happen, we want nothing more than for it to happen….but when it does finally happen, we wish we had a few more days, weeks, or months to actually get ready for it.

We struggle to enjoy where we are. Right now.

We struggle against change in the moment, but — after a few years have passed — that change has become the “new normal” and we cannot imagine anything else.

Why is change so difficult? Why is it so hard for us to adjust to new places, new people, new roles? Why are we constantly wrestling with time — bending it, rushing it, twisting it, trying to stop it?

In some ways, these tendencies seem inherently, gloriously, messily human. But I wonder. I wonder about the true purpose of a human being. Hear that? Human being?

We were made to be. Heck, it’s in our very name, as human beings! If we were to focus on our being….and just resting in that being…and allowing the world around our being to grow, change, develop, as it will, in the meantime…..and allowing our outer selves to adapt and change accordingly….how would life be different? How would we experience time differently?

This tree is acting more human than treelike. Nature is usually much better at being than we are.

I challenge you, dear reader, to experiment with just being. See for yourself.

New Eyes

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The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

A friend posted this quote on Facebook.

I’m not sharing ground-breaking news to say that most of what’s posted on Facebook most days is pretty mundane and trite and shallow. Sometimes, however, gems appear.

This was a gem.

As soon as I saw this, I stopped. Proust’s idea worked its way inside me, and I couldn’t help but contemplate it. Especially because this thought is, in large part, the very sort of thinking within which I started this blog.

Yes, we all go places. All the time. But how do we go places — and why?

Also — and this is the big point here — do we realize that there are many new places we can go without getting up and moving at all? Journeys don’t require planes, trains, or automobiles. They don’t require legs or wheels. There are many new places we can go within our own beings, and the world will seem entirely different to us. All will be new.

Have you ever considered this before?

Canvass

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After our recent move to Minnesota, I’ve been contemplating how much the “canvass” on which our life is painted can change, when changing cities (and/or states and/our countries).

You start to sub-consciously expect new feelings on your skin, when you first step outside every morning. You unknowingly become accustomed to certain kinds of vegetation wherever you look. You start to get used to a certain level of moisture in the air, a certain particular color in the sky above.

You go out and about, living life like you do, and the things you see in your peripheral vision are different. The types of stores, cars, street signs — yes of course. But even (and especially) the types of natural scenery that are un-self-consciously existing where you are, as if there were nowhere else they could be in the world — almost as if all of the world could easily be home to them, since the whole world is contained within them as it is.

I grabbed the photo above while out running errands, just a few weeks after we had arrived. I was driving home after a standard Trader Joe’s run, backseat full of bags of peanut-butter-filled pretzel pillows, fresh flowers, bananas, and the like.

And there it was.

If I would have been too caught up in my “life,” as we humans most often define them —  to-do list(s), counter-arguments to something on which my husband and I had been disagreeing, or worries, perhaps — I would have totally missed it.

But there it was.

I didn’t miss it, and I was moved to consider: where else but the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” do you just encounter a scene like this while out running errands?

This is definitely one of the perks of having a Minnesota canvas for our lives.

What is your canvas? And how does it affect you, as you live?

Clean

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Have you ever noticed how good “clean” feels?

Today I was reflecting on this, when I realized how good simply taking a shower made me feel. I have experienced a similar feeling when I clean the house — or even just one room.

The sense of relief is almost immediate. Relief. Peace. Calm. Rest. Happiness.

Am I the only one who feels this? I can’t imagine so.

So why is it that, as a species, we spend so much time, money, and energy pursuing other thrills — other highs, or other potential sources of good feeling? You know the drill: shopping, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sex, food. 

Let’s take just one of those examples. You go on a shopping trip and buy a few new shirts, or shoes. Maybe a new set of pillows for the living room, or a new gadget you’ve been wanting. The thrill is immediate. But then….isn’t it inevitable that many of us feel a sense of guilt before too long?

Maybe we don’t have the money to spare, but we spent it anyway. Maybe we don’t really need what we bought — and we know that. Maybe we are saving for something more important, and now that  purchase is pushed further off.

Whatever the reasons, there are almost always inherent negatives to the means we most often choose in pursuit of that ever-evasive end: feeling good.

Why on earth do we so often avoid the one that is a fairly unassailable win?

A Front Porch in Summertime

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Front Porch. Summertime.

Front Porch. Summertime.

Like churches and synagogues and temples, I have a thing about front porches.

How can you not like a place where you sit, just being? Unlike sitting inside a house, when you are on the front porch, you are at least marginally involved in the world around you. You can hear your neighbors, if not wave hello to them. You can enjoy the dappled sunshine during the day, the crickets at night.

I like to rock in my rocking chair on my front porch. I like to read. I like to drink coffee.

The porch pictured here is the porch from my last house. You know what I most liked about this porch? The plants providing privacy in front. When you sat on this porch, you were mostly hidden. Flowers and greenery were all around. You could see but not be seen. You could observe the world but not be observed. I thought of this porch as being almost a “secret garden.”

I loved this porch especially.

Holiness

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Holy Hill. Hubertus, Wisconsin

Holy Hill. Hubertus, Wisconsin.

I have a thing about churches. I’ve always loved them. Actually, I have a thing about “holy” places of all kinds. Synagogues. Temples. Muir Woods’ Cathedral Grove, a redwood tree monument to world peace in northern California.

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Here’s the thing: I love places that humans have set aside. Places where we go to transcend the most gnarly parts of our humanity. Places that speak to something greater, something beyond.

I love to go to these places to be quiet. To listen.

There is much to hear.