Fierce February Light

It’s dreary and cold, but at least it’s short.

That sums up my attitude towards February. The lights and sounds and smells of Christmas have faded and spring won’t really arrive until May (in New England). The only good thing about February is its length: 28 days. Four weeks: I can get through that. March will be spring in name only, but the days will be warmer and the nights shorter.

Two weeks ago, a fierce February light shone into my staircase window. Staying home last fall, I appreciated my maple trees more than ever, watching as their colors changed every day, from the lightest yellow-green of spring through many gradations until the yellow leaves fell in October. This month, I watch how the sun out my south window traces a higher arc than in December. The sunlight seems brilliant white, intense, and pure.

When we moved to New Hampshire in 1985, I reveled in the fact that I got to live in a place that other people only visit on vacation. For the last 29 years, living less than half a mile from the Lexington Battlegreen, I’ve seen tour buses three seasons of the year (most years and hopefully again soon). For me, it doesn’t matter when the fall color ‘peak’ happens; I’m here for the whole show.

I just learned what February means. It’s named after Februa, an annual Roman festival of ritual purification and cleansing. In Old English it was often called Solmonath, mud month, and less frequently, Kale-monath, cabbage month. By February cabbage would be the only green vegetable available. (Thank you dictionary.com)

We’ve stayed at home (mostly) for the past 11 months. I’ve watched the seasons revolve out my office window while sitting in my diagon alley. For all my life, February has been my most underappreciated month. This year, I’m savoring it.

 

Clean Sidewalk

 Last Tuesday we got another two or three inches of snow. After dusk I walked to the post office, enjoying the crunch of the snow beneath my boots and the near-empty streets. After posting my package, I took the circuitous route home down Winthrop St. Ahead of me I saw a neatly cleaned stretch of sidewalk and heard the scrape of a snow shovel. A middle-aged man with his back to the street was shoveling his front porch steps. I thought I’d pass by silently: somehow the pandemic has made me shy of people, but decided to take the chance to have a connection. “Nice sidewalk” I shouted. “You are welcome!” he called back. The simple exchange warmed me as much as the aerobics of trudging through the snow.

Half a mile later, I saw a man and a dog at the bottom of Belfry Hill. After I had passed, I heard the dog rushing up behind me. As it hit my knees, I screamed, but kept my balance. The man yelled at the dog and the dog retreated. “Sorry!” called the man. I thought about calling out angrily: the dog had really frightened me and in that situation it’s no good the dog owner saying, “He’s harmless.” If he were so harmless, he wouldn’t have chased me.

But I just walked on. That was as charitable as I could manage. I didn’t feel like calling out, “That’s okay,” or “No harm done,” or “I’m sure he meant well.” But I could manage not criticizing the man. There are leash laws in Lexington: the dog should have been leashed.

I had a vague idea that Lexington has a ‘leash law,’ so I Googled it:

No dog owned or kept in this Town shall be allowed to be off the premises of its owner or keeper except in the immediate restraint and control of some person by means of a leash or by effective command. The owner or keeper of any such dog that is not restrained or controlled off the premises of its owner or keeper shall be punishable by a fine of up to $50 or the maximum permitted by Section 173A of Chapter 140 of the General Laws, whichever is higher.

I suppose the man thought his dog was restrained by effective command, but, in my book, any dog who rams into the back of my legs is not effectively controlled.

If I were more charitable, perhaps I would have turned and smiled, said good doggy or the like. But at least I didn’t lash out. He probably didn’t expect any pedestrians on a snowy evening: there were no other pedestrians and hardly any cars out even.

Sunday, Jim went with me to in-person sacrament meeting. Quick waving of the hands (I suppose we can see each other's smiles behind the masks) and a short conversation or two out in the parking lot. Not satisfying, but better than nothing.

Yesterday we called a house painter, Marcio of Souza Painting, for some house projects that have languished for years. We made a list and Marcio and I walked through the house and outside as I explained the jobs and he made comments and notes. After we were done, Jim came down and we chatted for a few minutes. After seeing our library, he told a funny story about his relationshiop to a very thick book a customer gave him. (He took it on a 9-hour flight back to Brazil, but it stayed in his bag.) Have you read every book? Well, maybe parts of most of them, between the two of us.

It felt so good to have a normal conversation with a great guy. (He refinished our deck and coach house stairs a few years ago and they still look great.) He cheerfully helped Jim carry an IKEA bookcase in a box up to David's room. We've calculated that we can keep buying books, at a moderate rate, for the rest of our lives if we purchase about three more bookcases. I told Marcio that owning books was a hobby: Some people collect sportscars; we own books.

Reward and Loss

 

December 1^st I signed up for Nerd Fitness One-on-One Coaching. I had stagnated in my fitness goals and needed some outside help. Frankly, aging is encroaching on my resolves.

              This isn’t going to be a post bemoaning lack of fitness, but suffice it to say that over the last 18 months I’ve gained over 25 lbs. At that rate, I soon would be at risk for serious health consequences.

              My new Nerd coach, Heather, suggested I start by simply logging my food intake and giving her access to my data. She reviews it, without comment. I thought that would clinch it: the motivation of knowing someone, even a very sympathetic someone, was reading my log. But it didn’t.

              I asked her about motivation tips and she suggested a non-food reward system. As I considered it, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted (besides ice cream and skittles: I have very simple tastes). I enjoy wearing old clothes, have frugal habits, and these days, with college tuitions behind us, if I really want something, I buy it.

              I mentioned the problem to my psych. nurse practitioner. She suggested finding a therapist who could help me work through the issue. Duh! I’ve had a therapist since my last psychotic break in 2003. Oh, right, she said, of course you do.

              When I saw my therapist, David, two weeks later, I presented my dilemma. What he asked in response took me aback.

What losses have you experienced during the pandemic?

    My immediate reaction was: I haven’t had any significant losses. I haven’t lost any loved ones in the pandemic (my parents died six and seven years ago), I can freely take walks in our leafy ( currently snowy) suburb of Boston; my grandchildren (and children) have been able to visit and enjoy our ‘grandchild magnet.’ But David just sat patiently as I processed his question and I did finally offer that I’d lost the ability to travel freely, attend musical concerts, and meet with people.

              He asked what my church congregation was doing and I admitted that although the in-person meetings were better than nothing, they were highly unsatisfactory: the 30 or so participants sitting in every third pew, unable to congregate, chat, and catch up before and after sacrament meeting. Sunday School and Relief Society are exclusively on Zoom.

    We left it there: the hour was over, but I continued to ponder his question.

    A reward system, as I have always practiced it, is actually a punishment system. My focus has always been giving up something pleasurable unless I straighten up and meet a goal. Similar to lugging books home from college, in my reward system I'm always behind, always inadequate, always falling short.

    Do I really need to punish myself in this time of loss? No, I don't. I've always considered myself an introvert, but even this introvert misses the face-to-face contact, the ability to give and receive nonverbal messages, the immediate feedback which prevents the common talk-over of Zoom.

    Pondering David's inquiry hasn't solved my overeating, but it is giving me a window into my interior world. That's the first step.

Childhood revisited

 I continue to work on my memoir. On November 9th I sent it to my sister Maggie to read. (Thank you, Maggie!) She planned to return it before their Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina.

But they cancelled their trip, Thanksgiving came and went, and she didn’t send it back. Then Lincoln was born and Jim and I drove to D.C., stayed ten days, then drove to Chicago and spent a week with his mom.

Without planning it, Maggie gave me an incomparable gift. From November 9th to January 8th, I entered a magical state of childhood. Each break during college: Thanksgiving, Christmas, even summer, I would cart a heavy suitcase of books home to study. I rarely opened any of them, but the psychic weight was heavier than the suitcase. By the time I graduated from college, the mental habit of always feeling underprepared and inadequate was firmly entrenched.

My third psychotic episode was in 2003. Shortly after I returned home from the hospital, I enrolled in a creative writing class. I dreamed of writing a memoir of our 1995 cross-country trip. Some years later, my focus turned to my manic depression (bipolar). My inaction fed a constant undercurrent of anxiety.

But when I clicked send on November 9th, I was suddenly on vacation. A true six-years-old-and-nothing-to-do-but-ride-my-trike freedom. I couldn’t work on it: it was in Maggie's hands. The weeks stretched on, and I basked in the tranquility.

Is this an indication that I really don’t want to do the project? I don’t think so. I needed the breathing space, the luxury of having nothing to do. The ability to pick it back up on my own terms.

Holiday Weekend

 The weekend with Andrew and Victoria went better than I dared hope. They are wonderful houseguests. They told us the next day that they had cried in bed Saturday night, after we had sung them good night. But Victoria’s report Monday evening to her mom was that she didn’t miss her because she was having a great time. It was an immersion experience. I had decided not to fret about undone work and just enjoy creating a wonderful holiday weekend for our grandchildren.

Friday evening, Peter and we met in front of the Town Line Diner in Rocky Hill, just south of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Wethersfield has been a source of romance for me ever since falling in love with The Witch of Blackbird Pond in fifth grade. Back in the 1600s, Rocky Hill was part of Wethersfield.

I’ve been driving up and down I-91 for 36 years, going to New Jersey to visit my parents, D.C. to visit the temple (before the 2000 opening of the Boston Temple, which reduced our temple trip mileage 100-fold, from 450 miles to 4.5.) I’ve seen the highway sign for the historic Wethersfield ferry, but never stopped to investigate. Service began in 1655, making it the oldest continuously-operated ferry in the United States.

When Peter got to the parking lot, where we would ‘exchange prisoners,’ we proposed a birthday supper at the diner. I've loved diners longer than Blackbird Pond. I had moussaka and asked the waitress if she was Greek. No, Albanian. We were nearly the only customers and she treated us royally. On Monday, when we met Xiomara at the same parking lot (it’s within two miles of being halfway between our homes), we talked her into a meal there as well.

The weekend felt so spacious. We planned our last day, Monday, on the white board: playground, fly Andrew's drone, foosball, cotton candy, go home.

As the slogan says, “If I’d known grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first.”

Pizza and plans

 Jim cleared his closet last week and I put all the discarded shirts and pants into two large black garbage bags and searched the web for a place to take them. Many are quite a bit past the ‘gently used’ stage: I didn’t want to burden a charity with textiles they will lose money recycling.

I found Helpsy. No donation boxes in Lexington or Arlington, but several in adjoining Burlington, including one in the parking lot shared by Blaze, a pizzeria doing for pizza what Qdoba does for Mexican food: all the toppings included for one base price. (My pathologically-frugal self was tempted to ask for every topping, but I forbore.)

Over a year ago, when Blaze first opened, we came, coupon in hand, but the doors were locked, with employees seen through the window. The manager answered our knocking, came to the door, and explained: a food shipment had failed to arrive and they were out of dough for their grand opening.

Last night there was plenty of dough and plenty of seating. (We were the only dine-in customers.) As we enjoyed the delicious pizzas, Xiomara called. Our granddaughter, Victoria, had been cajoling her all day, insisting on calling Oma and JimDad to see if she and Andrew could visit alone during the upcoming holiday weekend. We had offered Peter and Xiomara a reverse get-away: we’d entertain the kids at our home (a.k.a. grandchild magnet) and leave their apartment kid-free.

By the time Victoria got on the phone with us, she had changed her tune. She only wanted to stay two days. But Xiomara was firm: you wanted to call them all day; you’re going.

My parents invited grandchildren to visit for a week, once they turned eight. (At the time, one of my kids proclaimed that he would spend a week with them until he was thirty.) I’ve often thought that they were wise to set that age limit: by eight years old homesickness is often curable, especially when there's ice cream on your cereal every morning.

Andrew is nearly eight, but Victoria is just five. A year and a half ago, she sat, ramrod straight on top bunkbed, refusing to be comforted until her parents came home from their night out with their siblings. I found the show-down exhausting. I didn’t cave and call her mom, but it took a lot out of me. When I expressed my trepidation towards this proposed visit to Jim, he said, “I’ll be alright.”

I suppose I will be also. Check in with me next week.

Ring in the new

I often grumble about New Year’s Eve and pretend to hate the Roman holiday. I try to be asleep before midnight: I actually accomplished that this year: Jim and his mom had to crack open the non-alcoholic sparkling Rosé without me.

But really, I fall for it every year: hook, line, and sinker. Like a lawn covered in a pristine blanket of new snow, the fresh calendar inspires thoughts of and hopes for new beginnings.

Fun trivia fact: Great Britain and its American colonies started their new year on March 25 until 1752. I like that: new beginnings should start in the spring, when the days grow from the spring equinox to summer solstice and spring planting has started (south of New England, at least).

On December 1st, I hired a Nerd Fitness coach and rang in the new year with exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle goals. I even wrote a (bad) haiku:

Awareness increased

Incremental is the key

Open to the world

 

I've written about Nerd Fitness before:

Phyz Ed

Self-help Junkie

Nerd Fitness

My Nerd Fitness ‘Big Why’ (written in May 2020)

I am engaging in Nerd Fitness Academy because I want to have a healthier body with the strength and energy to enjoy life. I want to continue to garden, keep house, enjoy my grandchildren, walk long distances, and serve other people.

I want to be a seventy-year-old woman who seems to be fifty-five. Yes, fifty-five will be my new normal.

I’m not sure this is attainable, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Welcome, 2021.