I’ve lived through many a winter day and winter night and wondered whether the dreaded season would ever end. Funny how before I was stuck with her…winter seemed to be this mysterious, magical and romantic character. I’d heard how during winter the nights got so quiet that you could literally hear the icicles forming on the branches and that the snowflakes sometimes fell in slow motion, sort of performing an intimate dance to a rhapsody that nobody else could hear. I’d heard that during winter, marshmallows floated in hot chocolate and fires (wood or electric) blazed in fire places and people snuggled closer to one another to share blankets and share their hearts.
They were not wrong…winter is all these things, and definitely did not disappoint.
But winter is also hard and angry and biting. It is the hardest and most nerve racking experience driving in winter. The storms are angry and blow feircely, and if the sand trucks haven’t come by to de-ice the road, then its quite perilous. Winter can also be sad and mournful and numbing. Something about not being exposed to real sunlight for an extended period of time, just makes life less full and hardly exciting and definitely not vibrant.
so today, when I felt it, I recognized it. Today I felt that kind of numbing winter in my belly.
There’s a numbness spreading, strangely I can feel it. It started almost consciously. “If I numb myself then I wont feel and then I will be able to deal with each and everything that comes my way…I needed to be strong for them, for everyone else…” and this time, it wasn’t even an idea or ideal that I cooked up in my head…a very distinct phone call came that told me that I needed to be strong for everyone else. So there was that niggling voice that came in and in the frailest way possible, wanted to ask…what about me? Who is going to be strong for me and take care of me? But that was quickly hushed away… sura ya kazi on and the emotions were carefully folded away until I was able to steal a few moments to myself.
And then the routine begins and soon, the numbness becomes the norm, until something outside of the norm…like an out of place and incomprehensible phrase is uttered, that jostles you back to reality. The reality being that…all is not well. But EVERYONE knows that you absolutely CANNOT show that the blip in the matrix has stumped you (that was in lesson 8 of Deal with It 101).
So back to the routine you go…back to the numbness that now becomes your pulse…back to the unknown.
Back to the questions and the what ifs and the frantic yet covert, google searches for alternatives.
Back to fighting back tears and hiding trembling voices.
Back to the stages of denial and pretentious ‘busy-ness’…too busy to go back to the reality. … Reality is that you, like me…are scared to pieces about how helpless you feel..
So helpless that you don’t even know what to do with the sputtering of clichés that your belly knows are God’s truths. Hate to admit it, but we know that His will is indeed His will and that will never change! And that His will, very seldom is the same as our will! And that His will is often very clearly heard…if it weren’t for the clanging noise that happens to be our will, plus the ga-zillion other possibilities we try and suggest to the almighty God!
And this is when it hits me that that weird thing about numbing cold, is the burning fire right at the center of the numb. Few people recognize it…its usually masked by the nerves and the tingles. But in actual fact, it is the self-defensive/ protective mechanism that we are given to fight the winter. Possibly the only time when you, or your heart, or your soul is expected to focus on self combustion.
It’s the fire of the memories and the plans that you talked about making memories.
It’s the burning of the energy and passion that you get when you think about how alive you feel!
It’s the bubbling inside that gets you ready to rally EVERYONE around you towards the cause that will ensure that the winter thinks REALLY hard and long before coming out to do more than bring magic, mystery and romance.
Today I felt the numbing winter in my belly. Tonight I embrace the burning fire and I choose to love it…hot, charged and alive!
