I saw a doe stepping lightly through the shallows of our lake at four fifteen this morning. She was the perfect embodiment of peace and tranquility. The light from the moon, refracted by the cloudy whiteness of the coming snow poured a dim cover of light over the whole lake and it was in front of this light that I could see her perfect silhouette stepping gently behind our sumac bush.
Even though our house was perfectly dark and the bedroom even darker, she noticed me sitting up. She didn’t stop moving, just turned her head gently to look at me.
This is an emotionally charged time of year. We are getting to it now, the time when our highs soar with winged joy that teeters on the verge of the magical and our lows drag us so low we feel as if we are looking in to the bottom of a muddy river which reflects nothing but our total aloneness in the world. Why is winter the time when we seem to examine our shortcomings, all that we lack, and all that is not right with the world?
It seems that there is so much joy, leading up to the New Year that when Christmas dinner finally hits, we have the sugar crash of the century, like the United States is having a collective manic, depressive episode.
I am feeling it already and I’m not sure if it’s the Holiday blues or the last few weeks of pregnancy. My God, I wonder what post partum depression in January is like? I shudder to think. So much is culminating for me at the end of this year—wonderful things but big things. I will have another baby—two children to care for and keep safe. Its times like this I think of my mother raising four children and wonder how she did it without a nanny and heavy psychotherapy.
And my book will be published. It’s so exciting yet so unknown. I have put years of my life into this book and I wonder what finally publishing it will feel like. Will it sell? I imagine myself doing like Anne Lamott does when one of her books comes out and calling local bookstores, disguising my voice and asking them to carry it.
There is so much swirling in the transom of my mind this month that it feels like the holidays on steroids—too much excitement building in such a short period of time and yet I can’t call it joy. Joy is something simpler, something peaceful and quiet that does not threaten to drop you like a sugar crash. Joy is a more enduring and wholesome feeling that brings total tranquility, like seeing a doe quietly stepping through the water in the early hours of morning.
Even though our house was perfectly dark and the bedroom even darker, she noticed me sitting up. She didn’t stop moving, just turned her head gently to look at me.
This is an emotionally charged time of year. We are getting to it now, the time when our highs soar with winged joy that teeters on the verge of the magical and our lows drag us so low we feel as if we are looking in to the bottom of a muddy river which reflects nothing but our total aloneness in the world. Why is winter the time when we seem to examine our shortcomings, all that we lack, and all that is not right with the world?
It seems that there is so much joy, leading up to the New Year that when Christmas dinner finally hits, we have the sugar crash of the century, like the United States is having a collective manic, depressive episode.
I am feeling it already and I’m not sure if it’s the Holiday blues or the last few weeks of pregnancy. My God, I wonder what post partum depression in January is like? I shudder to think. So much is culminating for me at the end of this year—wonderful things but big things. I will have another baby—two children to care for and keep safe. Its times like this I think of my mother raising four children and wonder how she did it without a nanny and heavy psychotherapy.
And my book will be published. It’s so exciting yet so unknown. I have put years of my life into this book and I wonder what finally publishing it will feel like. Will it sell? I imagine myself doing like Anne Lamott does when one of her books comes out and calling local bookstores, disguising my voice and asking them to carry it.
There is so much swirling in the transom of my mind this month that it feels like the holidays on steroids—too much excitement building in such a short period of time and yet I can’t call it joy. Joy is something simpler, something peaceful and quiet that does not threaten to drop you like a sugar crash. Joy is a more enduring and wholesome feeling that brings total tranquility, like seeing a doe quietly stepping through the water in the early hours of morning.
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