Happy (New & Improved) New Year

Before Thanksgiving we had snow, not just a dusting, but piles. We pulled on winter coats, gloves and boots to go to my sister’s summer place to share turkey. It felt wonderful to walk into the camp, stomp our feet and unwrap ourselves from wool.

The week before Christmas colored lights reflected in the snowbanks outside our windows. We had to shovel chickens out of their coops through to the sheep yard. Our snowblower struggled with the heavy wet snow until a rock stuck in the tines stopped it with a tired sigh. We would just finish clearing the driveway when the town plow would roar past. The town plow driver maneuvered the big blue truck in the turn-around just at the head of the class four road and then roar back past again, his huge yellow blade leaving a wake of snow, like a crazy waterskiier, right at the mouth of the driveway. Paul climbed the resulting mountain, jamming his shovel into the pile, shaking his head before beginning once again.

Snow makes the holidays feel holly-jolly. The cold makes shoppers move quickly, faces jammed into neck warmers. In order to say “hello” to someone on the street you need to tap them on the shoulder so that they will look up from their chest and recognize you. Window scrapers are found on the floor of each vehicle for the duration of winter and you can’t be caught without an extra gallon of blue window cleaner rolling around in your trunk.

A few days before Christmas eve the temperature began to rise and rain began to fall. It did not stop. We stood in the window and watched snowbanks slowly retreat, dirty fall leaves and debris became visible. Throughout the day we continuously checked weather reports. Our July disaster burnt indelibly on our brains, the F word (flood) was beginning to be used and I felt my stomach tighten. There was nothing to do but wait and wipe mud from dog paws and use the other F word.

Paul and I sat quietly on the couch watching the fire in the fireplace. There was talk of riverbanks reaching their edges, creeping stealthily toward the floor of bridges in the dark. In the waiting, it felt as if we were moving backward in slow motion, As if darkness and difficulty were again grabbing at the backs of our shirts with long, scaly fingers.

Then Josh called us in the morning letting us know that the water had retreated during the night and that the newly opened shops in the downtown were open for Christmas business. We whooped and danced. This, certainly, a Christmas miracle.

Christmas came. Not entirely green, dirty white patches dotted the hillside and our pasture, tucked low between the mountains, remained covered in white. The escape from furtive grasping gave the holidays a shine. We celebrated.

On Christmas day our house was full of family, and dogs. People arrived in mud boots, arms full of brightly wrapped gifts peeking out of bags. The fire warmed the room, and the floor under the tree filled up with presents for opening, round two: the top of the cherry bar in our kitchen covered with food and candles. We all immediately fell into a comfortable rhythm of joking and filling our plates. My weary crock pot sat in the corner full of turkey meatballs while on the stove top, in a deep cast iron dish I browned Vermont-made beer brats. While I stood stirring, Josh lifted me off the ground in a bear hug. From my vantage point in our kitchen I was able to see into the living room where everyone sat, plates perched on knees. Paul was sneaking Bronte a cracker. My wood spoon stopped in mid air and I watched them all. In that moment, like heat rushing out of the wood stove, I realized that in that room I had everything I needed. Feelings of fear, uncertainty and sadness combated by love, familiarity, tradition. Standing there I felt the waters begin to recede.

I’ve never been one to believe in making resolutions. They tend to be ridiculously verbose and too grandiose to ever come alive. But I continue to struggle with how to move forward from this difficult year into yet another that doesn’t look much more promising.

In the truck running errands, I listened to VPR. The woman being interviewed was a science reporter involved with a magazine and the interviewer asked her about some big things that had happened this year in science. She first talked about the Mobius Strip: it has been a long term mathematical problem that had never been solved and yet, this year, success arrived. “Miraculous” she said.

She then talked about the heat vents at the bottom of the ocean. They push out super-heated water in the dark, freezing cold depths revealing a whole community of microorganisms live in that “Florida-on-the-floor”, retirees pushing south. However, no one had ever thought to look under those heat vents to see what might be there. Until this year. Apparently someone decided to take a peek, working around until they got underneath the vents and found an entirely undiscovered commune of sea creatures. Pulling back a curtain and finding gold.

At the end of the discussion she talked about the fact that, while this year, especially in relation to climate change, was so challenging and difficult, it was, actually, a great year in science. She wanted us all to know that if scientists and mathematicians were able to solve these problems, perhaps they could solve the problem of climate change as well. She wanted to give us hope.

Pretty much daily, I tell a cello student that, in music, much like life, beauty is found in small details; you can change a phrase by the way you play just one note.

My work for this New Year includes: looking small, recognizing the power in a room full of love, paying more attention to my own good advice, eating less kale, more chocolate.

Peace.