That old adage about New England weather—blink and it changes, or something along those lines—really proved itself true this week. Monday, we walked to school through nearly torrential rain (had it been snow, whoa baby). The rain, coming at the end of January, was kind of amazing, though, because it meant the snow disappeared and the ice got more slippery and then melted away and everything looked different by day’s end, brown and even green. Paradise Pond went from sheer ice to a combination of ice and water. Despite the muckiness and the dark, damp, slick messiness of the day that seemed totally not to fit into my conception of January in New England, I felt like there was sap inside my body and it was running again, an inner sensation of thaw that was luscious. Even my skin drank in some moisture happily.
Day by day, the temperature dropped, fleece jacket back to down, mitten-less back to mitten wearing.
By Thursday, a snowstorm that returned winter’s landscape. With the snow, wind blew, creating a dramatic tumble of snow going sideways and then a huge boom (and I’m told, lightening) that sounded like the longest thunderclap I’ve ever heard (making me wonder whether it was natural or the giant cargo planes booming overhead from Westover Air Force base). Wikipedia had a definition (of course): thundersnow.
The temperatures plummeted more still, so, today, I’ll wear my warm hood and even still, it’ll feel somewhat unpleasant to be outside.
The colors of the sky changed, too, when the weather moderated, all these shades of grey, thick, opaque almost white and steely matte metal pressed in. This morning, the tinges of pink in the grey-blue and silver-white sky that lifts up are crisp and thin, plucked from a frozen sky’s palette.
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Tuesday morning, I was invited to the Annual Meeting of Northampton’s Tuesday Market. The market’s manager, Ben James, of Northampton’s own Town Farm (my CSA), asked me to come, because he wanted the perspective of a resident and customer (and he knows, as you would too, if you’ve been reading Standing in the Shadows a while, too, that I’m more than a loyal customer, I’m a devotee). Anyway, it was an honor to sit around a table with farmers I so admire and think about signage and how to get the word out (early May, behind Thornes as usual, be there!) and hours and events and product diversity. The only other adult non-farmer there was Bill Letendre (Northampton’s Parking Commissioner) and he’s, as my 14 year-old would say, “Super awesome.” He’s also a huge supporter of Tuesday Market (hooray, thank you). Town Farm’s newest human, baby Wiley, attended part of the meeting and he exudes a calm few babies can boast, bright-eyed, grounded babe (what a delight).
So, I’m walking about all day Tuesday dreaming of warmth and longer days (and appreciating how much longer they already are) and trying to imagine the sweet sensation of fresh strawberries bursting sweet and warm in my mouth (and failing at that). The next day, gearing up to see President Obama’s State of the Union address, I was also trying to transport myself through time, to last January, when we seemed more overcome by hope than anything else, despite the unbelievable mess left by Obama’s predecessor. I watched and listened (cringing at the war cries and clean coal, but cheering at a promise to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, admonitions of corporations being granted personhood status and bolstering support of the battered middle class). From what the New York Times called the first year’s “bruising lessons,” the Administration’s second year begins. Personally, I am holding my breath, eyes open, and holding onto hope (by what feels, at times, a very thin thread).
A lot of what we bump up against in life is kind of best explained by seasons, how they cycle round, how sometimes they are out of step, and always how noticing them slows you down to observe and experience that much better. I had one of those weeks when, as a daughter, I was brought back to what it was like growing up (sometimes, the human equivalent of the weather just changing) and as a mother, I was shown that parenting an adolescent bears certain similarities to parenting toddlers (when overtired, them or you, things don’t go so well) but also differs (not simply that they can talk, but that their concerns include a new tenor of self-consciousness and awareness of the world, all of which echo with what came before yet is somehow more complex, too, this endeavor of moving toward adulthood).
I had one of those weeks as a friend when I was reminded that our pain sometimes bumps against others’ daily lives in ways that are difficult all around and that people’s lives bump up against others’ pain. How hard it is when you’ve lost something others seem to take for granted. We could feel it about infertility, about struggles to breastfeed, about having a child struggling with just about anything that seems easier for others (health, physical ability, academics, or basic social skills, just to name a few).
And all of that got me thinking about friends who have lost a spouse or parent, especially way too early (although regardless of when, losing someone we love can feel too early, people close to us or people who loom large as seemed the case with two notable people’s passing this week, the magnanimous and gifted Howard Zinn and the iconic author who helped usher so many of us into adolescence J.D. Salinger). Locally, the Garden is a place where families with young (defined here as babies through adolescence) children can gather for support and camaraderie. I just held the harsh sense of loneliness when what we want from someone else or the world just isn’t met, and then the gentle healing that comes sometimes from other people’s caring, in whatever form.
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Before I fell asleep last night, I gazed at a photo my friend, Ben Chance, snapped near his house in Atlanta, Georgia. There was the full moon hanging like a bright globe in the sky. This morning, still dark just before six when I awoke, I remembered to peer outside my window. Lo and behold, there it was, that same moon.
