I am moving slowly this weekend, feeling like I’m fighting off a slight cold, so I’m cuddling under a blanket in my favorite chair much of the time reading. The bitter cold has returned after a single day respite yesterday with temperatures in the twenties. I was looking forward to walking outside yesterday afternoon but when afternoon arrived I was feeling tired and chilled and my body said an emphatic, “No,” to a walk outdoors.
January often feels to me like it moves in slow motion, as if the clock hands are as chilled as the air outside. I can barely discern the passage of time.
“…she has reminded me that in the Greek, in the biblical Greek, the word “apocalypse” actually means an uncovering. And I feel like that’s a good way to talk about the moment we’re in: the uncovering of…” — Krista Tippett, OnBeing
So too, the pandemic drags on and on, though not necessarily in slow motion given the tsunami of cases across our nation.
In times like these I have to work a little harder at…
Uncovering Grace
The first thing I noticed this morning when I opened the blinds was the sun shining on the trunks of the trees that grow near the pond. Their bark looked golden against the blue shadows on the snow. And the blue shadows of trees on the snow painted dark horizontal lines across the backyard contrasting with the diagonal animal tracks that headed towards the pond.
Golden sunlight and blue shadows—ordinary grace—to highlight my day.
Stir Crazy
For the first time during this pandemic I’ve been noticing a growing feeling of restlessness. I had hoped to spend time in Santa Barbara, CA, with a photographer friend in February but have postponed traveling while the pandemic roars through our country. When the days are frigid and cold I wish that I could go to a fitness center to work out as walking outdoors in below zero wind chills doesn’t appeal to me. I even think about traveling to northern Minnesota (brrrr!) just for a change of scenery. But my desire to not catch or spread COVID keeps me isolated at home making just a few masked visits to the grocery store and chiropractor.
Still I am fortunate and practice daily gratitude in between my kvetching. My indoor plants and flowers, outdoor bird feeders, good books, photography and writing bring me daily joy. My two amaryllis plants which haven’t opened their flowers yet seem to be in a race to see which one will bloom first. This is how their buds looked this morning.
The one on the right is the “late bloomer,” the plant that took forever to show signs of life. Ironically it’s flower shoot is the tallest and it even shot up a second bud which I will show you below. (Hear that slow bloomers? Sometimes the late bloomers shine the brightest!)
“I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the silence, in the dark.”
― Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
Sometime in December I bought a small calla lily plant. This morning I noticed that one of the flowers is a double. Instead of one graceful curving petal, it has two!
How are you doing during this cold month of January and seemingly never-ending pandemic? Are you also busy uncovering grace in your everyday life?
May you walk in beauty.
Another self-portrait from my 52 Frames challenge this week
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