Yesterday was a cold, rainy day. There was snow in the air in the afternoon but not on the ground, at least not where I live. The thing was, that even though it was a damp and depressing day, and I could not quite get the chill out of my bones as the dampness seemed to seep into everything, it was also a happy day. It was not a productive day, yet another in a long string of non-productive days, but it was a day of contentment, a day in which I smiled often.
I do not fret the lack of productivity. Increasingly I despair of this life, a life in which we count the accomplishments of days, a life in which we count everything: calories, sleep quality, steps, items on our lists that have been crossed off. The more we count, I fear, the more we become automatons and the less human, or less humane, certainly less filled with imagination, hope, creativity and even empathy. A world of checklists is not a world of possibility.
But then, of course this is a year in which I am not the only one feeling the weight of demoralization. And I am one of the very lucky ones. I have a home that is secure and safe, I have food, I have friends with whom I remain in contact even though I yearn to see them more, for human contact that remains just out of reach. I have the resources, financial, physical, and even emotional to see me through. Not that this means there are not days in which I struggle, days in which the world feels more bleak than at all optimistic.
My absence from this blog reflects my struggle against demoralization, exhaustion, relevance. The truth is that I sometimes feel so trapped in my own head that any attempt at writing just seems pointless. I feel the weight of my own thoughts more simply because there are fewer opportunities for those thoughts to be sifted, shared, and newly revealed through contacts with others.
Perhaps my brightening mood is simply due to catching up on sleep. I wondered, at one point, if my good intentions had overwhelmed my sense, if I was able to weather the process of adopting an older dog, a diabetic dog, a blind dog. If I had realized the first two weeks would be as hard as they were, would I have done it? I hope so. We need each other Poncho and I. And life has settled down into comfortable companionship. I need to be aware of, to care for, another living being in my life, to get out of my own head. I need to be reminded that spending half an hour walking in a circle is just as important as spending the same amount of time in pursuit of some fixed destination. In fact, I wonder if all the goals I have pursued in life were really just points on a bigger circle. It seems, as I grow older I also grow closer to where I began.
Hmm.
It is Advent in the Christian calendar, the beginning of the church year, a time of waiting and preparation. I find it interesting, this beginning of the year in the darkest period, at least here in the northern hemisphere, of the year. But this, the circumstances of light and dark, of seasons, the world in which I grew and developed shapes the paths my thoughts are likely to take in their meandering. The church year begins in the darkness much like the way, in Jewish tradition, certainly in ancient Hebrew life, the day began at sunset. The calendar year begins just as light begins to return. We begin the day waiting for the light. We begin our lives being born. We begin our lives, in fact live our lives, in preparation, and in hope.
See here I am, feeling all positive again. Darkness is merely a transition, something from which to emerge.
But to what are we emerging? That my friends is the journey of a lifetime. To celebrate those moments of joy, whether they be short or long, to be compassionate to each other and ourselves when the tunnel seems to long, when we struggle, when we trip and fall. I am not sure that what we find in the light is what matters, simply that we make the journey, and that we are kind to each other and help each other along. I cannot say I have mastered this, that I am anything more than the lowliest of apprentices. Compassion to others comes far more easily than self compassion to me. But I still need to make the journey. We still need to make the journey. Together.