I have come to better understand the phrase “the winter of my discontent.” As I stumbled on the ice with an old yogurt container of sand in one hand, mail in the other (I was returning from getting my mail,) I decided this blog might end up being a whine session. So, if you would like to get some cheese and crackers to go along with my whine before proceeding, please feel free.
I am tired, tired of being cold, tired of expending great amounts of energy to complete the simplest of tasks. Every August, maybe September I get these idealized visions in my head of how wonderful it will be to wear heavier clothing, eat hearty food, curl up under blankets and read a book. Lest you think I just dream of indoor activities I promise myself, every fall, I will snow shoe or learn to snowboard; I will make the most of this “wonderful” season. But, here I sit and reality is I am tired! All I want to do is hibernate like bats and bears, curled up sleeping in nice dens, eating off the fat I put on over the holidays! But I cannot do that, I must go to work, I must pay the bills, I must go out in the snow to walk the dog and get the mail.
Oh, the dog…yes well he gets very excited when the snow arrives (at least one of us does!) However, now it is the dead of winter, he goes out, does his business and comes right back in, so much for him being part Newfoundland!
I have felt recently like I am fighting everything. Fighting to get my clothes on, fighting to open jars, fighting with the blankets on my bed, urf. I have taken to singing my discontent, I sing at drivers, I sing at inanimate objects in my way. Whine, whine, whine this is what I am doing at the moment. I know I have chosen to live in Maine; I have often said I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else for I love the change of seasons and the north Atlantic, but here in this moment I would be willing for a week of warm, white sand and aquamarine colored ocean.
As always I am pulled back to reality by the thought of my mother who grew up in Downeast Maine during the 30’s. She tells me of waking up in the morning and having snow on floor of her bedroom due to the windows being loose and the wind blowing the snow in. She had to walk to school; rarely having snow days and heated her soup over a wood stove in the corner of the schoolroom. My grandmother used to go out to for water and had to chop the ice in the well before drawing.
Life was considerably harder during those years, but maybe all things are relative. I try to talk myself into believing I come from hearty stock and should not whine like I do. Maybe I am soft, yeah, I am soft; I have a furnace, running water, hot even. I have a stove to heat food on and a car to drive to work with. I am trying to be “radically thankful” (see former blog.) More than that I am trying to motivate myself into action, I am writing this blog, I made interesting food to eat tonight. Maybe I am not so discontented now that I let my whine out on paper. Thanks for reading my whine, hope your cheese and crackers were good.
