Mountains Out of Snow Hills

This is an old picture from an old storm. We were supposed to get 2 feet of snow on Tuesday night. We felt like a kids on Christmas Eve, waiting for the storm of the century to arrive- bringing with it an epic blast of snow. Staying awake listening for the tinkling of snowflakes on the rooftop. But all we got was a 2 am wake up to the tune of the most annoying hail pelting our window. And, this has officially ended what little love I have for winter.

When we arrive at this point in winter- when the snow no longer holds its White Christmas charms, I tend to fall into a state of complacency. I hibernate. And because I am not expending energy outside of my home- involved in activities in my community, I tend to become impossibly absorbed in my everyday routine and make mountains out of little snow hills when my groove is disrupted.

It is Murphy’s Law that on Monday nights while The Mr. and First Born Son are at soccer training anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Here is a snapshot from a this past Monday:

My cupboards actually look much worse than that.

It is near bedtime for The Baby. On one hip, I am holding a her- cranky from having been freshly injected with her one year old vaccines. I am trying with my one free hand to prepare an awkwardly shaped sippy cup with a split formula, whole milk blend (because we are transitioning to cow’s milk). I open the cupboard to return the formula canister to the shelf only to find that magically it no longer has a spot. The lid is loose because, in my haste, my free hand has not pressed the seal securely. I feel the overwhelming need, despite The Baby’s protests and impatience from being kept from her cup of milk, to organize (again, with one hand) the cans, boxes of rice and pasta, drinking glasses, water bottles and measuring utensils which co-inhabit the three shelves. I curse aloud at Monday nights and the temporary, but immediate, feeling of abandonment. The children who are “exercising” on the Wii Fit in the other room ignore my call for back up as I can sense the contents of the shelf start to shift and take on life. As I move the colorful plastic wine glasses (remnants of my Nana’s kitchen), they fall apart at the base and I fling them about on the counter. They knock over the can of formula making it spill across the stove top. An avalanche of canned goods begins to roll toward us. A can of pears falls from the second shelf and lands somewhere on the first shelf knocking a drinking glass onto the ceramic tiled counter. The glass shatters into a million tiny bits. I demand that H come and retrieve the baby so I can vacuum up the invisible pieces of glass. As I am maneuvering the hose around the little containers on the countertop which hold miscellaneous items, I suck up two vials of homeopathic remedies. I dig them out from the dusty, hairy, glass ridden trap with my fingers. Cursing all the way. 

In my storm of frustration, I pull out my cell phone and call The Mr. and whimper and complain like a brat about how much I hate Mondays (and bedtime). And, in the middle of my melt down, the home phone rings. I can’t get out of the tangle of the vacuum cord, so the answering machine picks up. Although I can not make out the words- I recognize the voice, my friend, A, who lives in Connecticut. I stand still and hold my breath, reading her tone. It is cheery, upbeat. A good sign. Princess Commando brings me the phone and I play back the message. It is news that puts me in my place and slaps the grumbling out of me. She had her lumpectomy today. Everything went well. All clear. No. More. Cancer. My friend, a mother of three boys, has had every reason to curse and whine and feel troubled over every day from Monday through Sunday. But, she has, instead, chosen to remain positive and appreciative since the moment she was diagnosed.

It is so easy to get lost in the immediacy of a disordered moment-to lose perspective- to place too much importance on unimportant things. It is necessary for me to be shaken into awareness every so often in winter- to be reminded of the world outside this insulated cave. A news story, or a post from a fellow blogger alerting to some unfortunate accident or illness, a phone call with good news -affirming health and life- will light a fire under my fiercest emotions of love and compassion, enlivening the spirit of holding the ones I hold dear even nearer to my heart. And, as the first buds of green that I have been so longing for appear in Spring, I will emerge from the cave with a refreshed sense of consciousness and gratitude.