It has been cold, too cold. It has been grey, too grey. Snow banks as tall as me, my body sluggish, taking penguin steps on ice, near falls accompanied by little woops. Yesterday I thought about sunlight and vitamin d and wondered about that groundhog who decided our spring's arrival date...what was his verdict? A few weeks ago it wasn't of import; now, I am googling for results.
And I watch squirrels out my window, sweet powder dusted noses, shivering and eating oatmeal that I've thrown out for them. Like every day, since I had my brush with sickness when I began to sit and watch more. And I take photos like this one. Of their path, a testament to their love of my oatmeal, and to their work ethic, as a Facebook friend commented recently. Yes, they work hard, with devotion to something.
Turning from the forest...I look back in time, before my leg was taken. It is a bookmark, still a thing, still something to me, even if I wish it weren't. Still. Last year was shiny and fresh, a ticker tape parade sort of euphoria for life. I fell to the floor, easily doing a plank challenge, saying a prayer while I was down there. Life was enough. This year I am greedier, feistier. There are moments when I want my old body, my whole body.
Just kidding, God. It's me, Julie. And I really wanted it all. I told you I was okay with trading a slice of my body for breath, but...
...my stubborn gaze turns back to that path, hard won through squirrels' singular devotion. To stay alive. The snow this week turned it into a faint path, and even two paths at first. Not a perfect march to something, or a linear testament to success. After a few hours, it formed again into a single way, as squirrels ran back and forth. Forth and back. Finding their pace and their path. Round and round, to where we go, nobody knows, and we know and we don't and we know once again.
Eating a few chocolates, and maybe drinking a glass of wine or coffee, binge watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix...I look back at the squirrels.
And a worthy question: Where is your devotion, Julie?
Still frozen in snow, but maybe melting from my husband's covid fever? A sassy answer comes, to this good question. For what do we wake and cry out...yippee, I get to (fill in the blank)...
...like squirrels barreling down our path.
Our devotion might be to something small, something big, it really doesn't matter. It is the feel in our heart when it leaps that matters. And we are patient with ourselves, we must be. Lavishly, extravagantly patient some days, and kind too. We might have brain fog, be cold, light-deprived, and we sit tight or lie down until spring comes and a fragile bud appears in our soil. Until we are ready, saying it takes as long as it takes.
And because like any good story, there are many characters, so my forest kingdom has raccoons and a possum who have just awoken. They stretch and they plod down that path, no bounce in their step. But they don't have coffee dates and happy hours, dissecting and lamenting and damning their need to sleep in the winter. They just do it. And then they wake up, when the time is right. Because there is time for everything under heaven, right?
So when it is time, our time, the perfect time...we rouse ourselves from winter, decide that now's as good a time as any, why wait then? Stand up, a shimmer of holy purpose, remembered again, a cycle of seasons complete.
Decide it is enough, we are enough. Bow to a star, go on our path.
To begin again....
...another plank challenge.
