Winter

Winter is arriving at this very moment. A cold front is working its way across New England to the Seacoast. The early morning forecast said the high would be forty two degrees today. But it was fifty eight degrees when I checked. Even weatherbug.com could not get it right. But now, two hours later, the temperature has dropped to forty four degrees. And the forecast holds the possibility of snow.

We have been blessed with spectacular weather here in New England for the last three months. It made me wonder what the big deal was about winter. It has not even felt Fall-like. Maybe winter would be similarly postponed or even skipped all together. Maybe I could leave the heavy jackets in the back of the closet. Maybe the sun will continue to shine every day.

No. Today started dark and got darker. The sky resembles the stirred froth of the nearby sea. The trees that have held tight to last leaves of color are surrendering to the wind and the rain. The empty trunks and limbs stand and sway with no excitement. Spring is a long way off.

New Englanders pretend to like winter, but for most that is a big lie. We depend on the holidays in November and December to get us through the first part. And then we look for some piece of hope to help us endure January and February. Maybe it is skiing. Maybe it is Florida. Maybe it is the mall. If only we can make it to March. But of course March turns out to be the worst month of all. Spring does not arrive and the world turns to mud.

So a long winter begins this morning. I am working hard not to be governed by that thought. I want to ignore it, to rise above it. I want to say that I am strong enough to get through it with a perky attitude. This year will feel different. I will not feel house bound when it gets cold and the streets are filled with slush. I will not feel put upon by lousy weather. It may be storming outside, but inside I will be happy and cheery. I am bigger than the weather. It should not affect my life. I will be strong.

But I know better. I know that there will be some additional struggles for me. People ask me if I have Seasonal Affective Disorder caused by a lack of light. I reply no, I can be miserable in all seasons. I am an equal opportunity employer when it comes to suffering.

In truth, my problem today is not the weather. My problem is that I am tired, and tired is not a good place for me to be. But I have decided that today’s malaise should be blamed on the weather. In fact, it is the fault of the weather reporting service. I am mad at them for getting the forecast wrong. I cannot find anyone else to get angry at, so they will do. And by the way, I am not angry, only tired. And if the power had not gone out in the middle of my writing this, I would be done by now. Perhaps not as tired. No I am not angry.

And I am not sad. I do not know why the Chopin piece that my wife is now playing on the piano makes me want to cry. I should be happy. I have no reason to be sad. No I am not sad or angry. I am only unhappy. Unhappy does not have anything to do with feeling. It is just a place of lack of joy. That’s all. I know that those feelings are overrated. To live with a lack is better than living in those distasteful, negative feelings.

I guess that I really have it all figured out now. I will just skate (a cold, winter metaphor) through the next few months. I will be fine, just fine.

August

August, the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Did you know that it was originally the sixth month in the Roman year, which began with March, and was originally named Sextilis (from Latin sextus, “sixth”)? So if things had not been shuffled, then August probably now would be called the month of Sex. That certainly would have changed things!

It was given its present name in honor of the emperor Augustus. To make it equal to the fifth month, the name of which had been changed from Quintilis to Julius in honor of Julius Caesar, a day was taken from the month of February and added to August. So that means that before the name change leap year would have had February 30. It would have been great to be born on February 30.

Do you think that Roman school kids had to start worrying about going back to school in the month of Augustus? Did they worry about how they would do at roman numerals? Did they hate Latin as much as later generations did? Did they take aqueducts for granted? What kind of really old stuff did they study for history? These are important questions.

What kind of songs did they sing when they were getting ready to return to school? In the classic movie “Billy Madison,” the great modern day philosopher/songwriter Adam Sandler gave us this anthem: “ Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad that I’m no fool. I’ve got my lunch box packed, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don’t get in a fight.”

Which brings us to September (the same in English or Latin) – the month that follows August and the time of our next Gathering. You will not have to pack a lunch to be there, but bring a little food if you can. And you will not have anything to prove to Dad or anyone else. Just come as you are. And hopefully there will be no fights. See you there.

June

June – yes it is June already. Well, it is not exactly June yet, but it is about to be June. It seems like only yesterday that we were in the throes of the colds of February.

So what does June have to say for itself. Summer begins in June. There is also one of those equinox days. It has to do with the tilt of various things or maybe one thing, the earth. Does the sun tilt? I am not sure which equinox it is, but I know that day and night are finally equal. And one of them will now get longer. I do not know which one. It does not seem to matter that much to me. No matter what, the daylight is too short for me.

My diary says that June 4 is a holiday in Ireland. I have no idea what the holiday is, but I am sure that the Irish will celebrate. June 14 is Flag Day. I am not sure that anything happens on Flag Day. I think that this year I will watch out for it. To our north, in Quebec June 24 is St. Jean Baptiste Day. I am sure that he must be someone important, but I champion my parochialism by refusing to find out who he is or was.

Bunker Hill Day is in June and is a holiday in Suffolk County only. It is just another reason for a day off for state government employees.

Let’s not forget Father’s Day on June 17. That is the day when all of the children who made a big deal about their mother on Mother’s Day in May guiltily plan something for their dad, even though the one shortcoming of each dad is that he is not a mom. Oh yes, children love their dads, but they looove their moms. I used to always give my father a hat for Father’s Day. My children have never given me a hat. Are they ungrateful? Of course, I have never told them that I would like a hat. No, if they really loved me they would figure it out.

June – a simple word given to us by the Romans. June bugs. June Jones (football coach.) And my favorite, June Cleaver. After all, I was the Beaver. He and I were the same age and looked alike. I would have traded for June Cleaver anytime.

Turkey in a Pear Tree

My wife called me out of the shower to see the sight. “Jim, there are wild turkeys outside!” I wrapped myself in a towel and ran to the front window. Six wild turkeys were making their way across the street into our front yard. They pecked their way up around the driveway and discovered the bird seed dropped by our piggy birds from their perches in the trees. Our birds are so well fed that they do not have to be careful about dropping food, much to the delight of the squirrels and now the turkeys.

I dripped my way from room to room in my house as the turkeys moved through the yard to the woods out back - six turkeys, each in its own right a spectacle. But six together, well that is an even bigger spectacle – maybe qualifying as a superspectacle, if there is such a word. If superstar football players can make superspectacular plays, then my turkeys can be a superspectacle.

Later in the day my wife called out, “Jim, the turkeys are back. And there are more of them.” I hurried to count them and this time there were seven. I was not too excited. I had already seen six that day and so one more was not a big deal. If there had been ten, then there would have been something to crow, or gobble, about.

An hour later I spotted three swans swimming down in the creek at the end of the street. I had not seen any swans since the summer, and the group of these snow white long necked beauties against the ice floes on the banks of the creek was quite a sight. And then they were joined by two more swans from across the creek and the five glided together. This called for an even closer look.

But there were only five. I had just seen seven turkeys. The turkeys had raised the bar for my sense of appreciation of nature. Even eight swans would not have been enough. If it took me ten turkeys to get excited, then it would take at least eleven swans to reach that level of euphoria.

As you can tell, my sense of appreciation is warped. I require volume. A few summers ago my daughter’s friend Danny exclaimed, “There’s a deer in your yard!” “How many deer?” I asked. “One.” One is not enough. We have deer all the time. It takes a least four deer to get me out of my chair. I demand volume.

I am not the only one who likes volume. Mariah Carey’s boyfriend recently tried to send her ten dozen roses, but there were not enough in the whole city to make up the order. I am sure that the several dozen that were delivered greatly disappointed her. It all depends on what you are used to. My wife is always thrilled on the rare occasion that I spring for a dozen roses. I have set the bar pretty low on the category of roses.

But back to the turkeys. You thought I never left them? I think I know where this volume problem started. It began way back in the middle ages with the publication of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” You know, that is the one that begins, “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree.” You will recall that the lover raised the bar day by day, “five gold rings,” “sev’n swans a swimming”… “ten lords a leaping,” up to “twelve drummers drumming.”

Enough already! When is enough enough? Why do I always want more? Is our culture a culture of more? Am I programmed to be dissatisfied with anything less than more? Have you ever seen a partridge in a pear tree? Wouldn’t that be wonderful thing all on its own?

Those questions are too weighty for me. I plan to spend my winter nights deciding just where to plant the pear tree. Or maybe I could plant a whole row. Or even several rows!

Flicker of Hope

My friend, Pat, is civic minded. Her town had a great idea during its tercentennial celebration several years ago. Every house in town would burn a lighted candle in a front window all day and night during the celebration. Pat liked the idea and she plugged in one of her Christmas candles in the picture window of her living room. She felt part of the celebration.

Time passed, the hoopla of a small town’s celebration died down, and the town moved on to other community issues. Lights were packed away to await the next Christmas season. But the light in Pat’s window remained on.

The light remained in the window for no particular reason other than it seemed like the right thing to do. It was a handy landmark for giving directions to her house. Pat is always giving out directions to strangers. She is known in the area as the woman who rehabilitates injured birds and people call frequently with injured owls, hawks and other birds of prey. She tells them to look for the light in the window.

One day, while dropping off an injured bird, a woman asked, “What is the light in the window for?” Pat had no ready explanation, but being quick on her feet, replied, “Oh, that’s a flicker of hope for the birds.”

The light, with its small incandescent bulb, shines brightly in Pat’s neighborhood. Across the street is an older couple who have had more than their share of illnesses and surgeries over the last few years. Pat and her husband have helped out in small ways when needed. The woman told Pat, “When my husband and I are in pain and just cannot sleep, we look out across the street and see your light. We know that you are always there if we need you. That means so much to us.”

Light bulbs do wear out. Sometimes in the middle of the night Pat awakes with the sense that the light has gone out. And perhaps this is the night that her neighbors need to see the light the most. Invariably her sense is right when she checks the light. A quick replacement is substituted from the important reserve supply.

Recently Pat has had her own medical problems. And she noticed that her neighbor across the street had left one candle burning in the window after the Christmas holidays had passed. She called her neighbor and said, “I see that you have a light burning in the front window.” “Keep smiling, Pat,” the woman said. Their roles had reversed. The light gone out from one house had reflected back. The flicker of hope had returned.

Hope keeps us going. The Czech leader Vaclav Havel said, “Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit … it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.” We could argue forever about the ultimate source, the anchor, but it is clear that we each can be an anchor by orienting our spirit. And the orientation may be not toward anyone or anything but merely out. The recipients, those we somehow touch, will show up. One small flicker of hope will reach another and another and another. My light goes on today.

The Fire Truck

"Another funeral,” I said to myself as I turned my car onto the street which runs down to Newburyport Center. I often travel this route which passes the Roman Catholic Church which fills the block. Instead of the usual empty row of spaces the road was filled with cars from a funeral procession. The hearse and the limousines for the family were parked and leading the way. A flash of red struck my eye. The early winter’s day had not yet yielded a touch of sunlight and the cold, hard, gray light blended all of the vehicles together. But one vehicle stood out: a shiny red fire truck.

My first reaction connected the scene to the recent tragedy in Worcester in which six firefighters lost their lives fighting a fire in an abandoned warehouse. Two of them entered the building after a report of homeless people living there. Those two became trapped and four more entered to save them. All fell, leaving seventeen fatherless children.

The funerals for those lost men were large public displays. Firefighters from around the country rallied in support of their fallen brethren. This display in Newburyport was too small to be connected – just one small fire truck. And yet I am sure that someone was rendered fatherless in Newburyport too.

The fire truck was not of recent vintage. It was too small and too rounded. Today’s trucks are large and have sharp angles with boxy noses. This truck I recognized as from the fifties, from the era of my childhood. On most days in the late fifties I walked by the firehouse in my hometown. I never did go inside. My Cub Scout den never did make the trip. I would stop across the street and peer in at the vehicles. Only the front of the trucks showed in the late afternoon light; the rest faded into the shadows of the barn. Those big rounded fenders were perfect for reflecting light and pulsed as shiny as a new red apple. They were safe. They were always there and ready in case there was a fire at my house. My family was safe. I was safe.

At the funeral, the fire truck had been transported from a different time. Here forty years later it stood out as a red marker in the last ritual of life. Black is the ordinary color of death, and yet the deceased, or someone on his behalf, chose red to be his signature.

I know nothing about this deceased. I prefer to make it all up. I believe that this was his antique fire truck. Somehow the love of a child for things big and loud and red was never lost in him. He retained that playful glee and drove his truck in parades to share his childlike feeling with others. It would be only fitting that his favorite toy be at his last public performance.

One other detail must be mentioned: the fire truck was covered with flowers. The incongruity of this splash of colors and softness was shocking. This truck, which in its heyday carried many men on saving missions and perhaps on missions which cost them their lives, was covered with flowers. This symbol of his childhood and of his life was a final resting place for the beauty of this world.

I bet the deceased would have smiled. No, he would have been jumping up and down with glee. His toy had been transformed into something he had never considered. It lit up the lives of all those who drove past it that day – even in death, a serious, playful reminder of the joy of living.

The Healing Service

I drove up to the church in the evening darkness and it came upon me quickly. A huge stone structure, first hiding in the trees, imposed from the hillside. The service was to be in the adjoining chapel and I was happy for the promise of a more intimate setting. But the chapel was bigger than many churches and it too had a high, sweeping vaulted ceiling. In the dim light I could make out a small circle of chairs. My heart seized and I wondered if I had made a mistake in coming here.

The phrase “healing service” had whispered in my ear and lured me here. I had never been to a healing service and I had no idea what it was about. Something in it suggested an intimacy and an intensity not normally part of a church service. That was the draw for me.

As I sat in the circle, preparations were made for the service. The leader warmed up at the piano which was part of the circle. Candles and more candles were lit and the room began to glow. A large crystal bowl of water reflected the light and the unknown. Slowly the circle filled.

We began with a hymn and then went around the circle telling why we were there. I had come out of curiosity. I had come to add to my repertoire of church experiences. But as the circle came round, it became clear that I had come to be healed.

The addition of school into my life has been difficult. School has been a succession of stressful events: papers and tests. Some I have handled well, some not so well. By “well” I do not mean the end product. I am referring to the process of writing the paper or studying for the test. Sometimes the process did not go well.

When it did not go well, I paid the price. Life became narrowly focused – focused on the project at hand. Everything and everyone else would fall by the wayside. I could feel the stress in my body. I felt like a balloon stretched to near breaking. If only I could release some air, some pressure. I worked with stress reduction techniques like hot baths and exercise. They brought only temporary relief.

Stress is just a sanitized word for fear. I do not like to think that I am fearful, so calling it stress puts the locus of the problem outside of me. I fool myself into believing that fear is not the problem. The problem is that thing out there that is stressing me. But the true locus of stress is internal and it is fear. I worked on my fear. I thought a lot about it, trying to figure out what was at its root. But that was just another dead end mind game.

My fear-full self sat with others in the circle. We did not talk about our problems. We did not talk about our fears. We did not talk about anything at all. Instead, we sang. We followed an enchanted woman who sat at the piano and drew us out of ourselves and into the circle. We sang of faith, wisdom, fear, trust, love, rage, despair, hope, sorrow, healing, freedom, joy and compassion. We sang of ourselves from our hearts.

Somehow that night I healed. But my healing was not a releasing event; it was a replacing event. During the service my heart opened – it opened to the world. The stress of school focus and self focus was replaced by a movement out into the world toward others.

The shift in focus diminished the impact of the fear on me. So maybe relieving stress does not mean doing less of the stressful activity, but means living and acting from a different place. A call to a loved one, a hug offered to a partner, or a note to a friend in need, may do more than any stress reduction plan.

It was hard to leave the candles and the glow of the circle that night. But leaving was made easier by knowing that something unneeded was to be left behind and something new had been gained. I left with the song of my heart.