Although our first snow has melted, the memory remains. The anticipation of more hangs in my mind. More snow is coming, winter is coming, and I will do my best to embrace both.
Tag: acceptance
Hectic
Life requires a little more of my time over the next few days. Not a complaint, a statement of fact. It’s possible, even necessary, to be grateful for a very full schedule. My appreciation for the eventual bit of down time coming soon is heightened.
Tree in Field, Chatham-Kent
This tree stands, living through snow, rain, cold, heat, anything and everything thrown at it. It doesn’t rail against, revile, complain about, whine about the onslaught. Life is what it is, to be accepted and dealt with.
Gratitude
It’s good to be alive.
Aging
Sometimes I reflect on Stella’s age. Shes’ eleven. At times though it’s apparent she’s a senior. Her overall energy level is a little lower (thank dog!). I think she’s more content to watch the world go by from her throne, the deck. This rarely saddens me. Dogs grow up, age, get old, and die as we watch their life unfold. It’s life. I don’t look forward to her getting old, infirm, and possibly grumpy. Yet any sadness, not-look-forward-to-it-ness, denial, any negative feelings I may have will not change by one iota the fact, the process, of her aging. I’m very grateful to have had her. I gained purpose at a time when I was looking for purpose. She’s been so good for me and good to me, I hope to have returned a tiny bit of the favour.
Not done yet
It’s about 6C today, sun is out now. A pleasant day.
Winter will remind us tomorrow that it’s not done, not gone yet. Snow begins overnight, perhaps 15cm by tomorrow night, strong north winds, temperature dropping throughout the day. We mewling humans cannot change this by one jot or iota. What we can do is to prepare physically, mentally, spiritually, and to accept what is coming. We don’t have to like it, we can grumble. We don’t have to prepare or even accept. I think it’s best to do so.
It’s good to be reminded that we are not all-powerful, to accept with grace our insignificance, to be humbled.
Adapting
These ‘weeds’ live in a very harsh environment – on the beach where the wind constantly blows. Thursday it may have been blowing 70 kph or more. The sun bakes down, winter and summer, radiating intense energy. The temperature varies from -25C to +30C throughout the year.
Yet these ‘weeds’ will almost certainly revive, bloom, reseed. They will live, thrive, because they adapt. They live in this environment, they adapt to it. They remind me that life, living, is about adapting to, accepting unpleasant as well as pleasant situations.
January fades . . .
. . . into February, and winter continues. The five day forecast suggests MOTS – More Of The Same. Snow and cold (though not extreme cold similar to the two spells in January).
It’s a beautiful time of year, a trying time of year. At times I do think ‘Each day brings us one day closer to spring’ yet I choose to focus on the first two words in that thought. ‘Each day’ is its own entity, one to be appreciated to lived, and if it cannot be enjoyed, then at least accepted. I choose to not become sad, anxious, depressed, despondent about this long winter going on and on.
Quite a summer
We have sometimes wondered whether we have slipped from early summer directly into early fall. Other than one uncomfortably warm week, temperatures have been strangely mild. One morning the low temperature was 11.5 C and this morning’s low has been about 13.5 (I haven’t checked the thermometer yet).
We do not complain though. Memories of summers past, particularly summer in Texas, help us be grateful for this mild summer. I think that we are generally appreciative of our climate, no matter what is going on. Though we may sometimes grumble and not like it, we cannot change it. It’s better to, at minimum, accept what we cannot change.
I sometimes call Texas ‘the land of hot and not as hot.’
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