The one thing I wish for in the cottage is a fireplace.
Meantime, this will have to do.
There’s a pot of chili on the
stove, the little artificial fireplace is blazing away—no heat, but the image
is warming, and I am at my desk with a blanket over my knees. The trouble with
that comes when you have to get up and move around—your legs, accustomed to
warmth, freeze. The words cozy and cottage seem to go together, but as I
learned in Snowmageddon and am learning all over again today, so do chilly and
cottage.
A friend said recently that
Texans have PTSD from Snowmageddon. Mention the possibility of below-freezing
temperatures and that dreaded wintry mix, and our nervous minds jump back to
loss of power and days spent shivering under a pile of blankets, to say nothing
of over two hundred people who died. We relive the ice storm of 2021, and we
are convinced the grid has not been fixed, the power will go out, the pipes
will freeze, and we’ll be cold, hungry, thirsty, and miserable. All week there’s
been a sense of dread in the air as folks prepared for the cold—outdoor faucets
were covered, pot plants came inside, grocery stores were mobbed. Folks in my
area turned out in good numbers to get blankets and beds to shelter animals and
hay to areas where stray dogs and feral cats are known to hang out.
What I hate most, even more
than the discomfort, is the sense of ennui that comes with a severe cold spell.
It’s too easy to think, “I can’t do that now—or this—or whatever, because it’s
too cold.” And I feel more isolated, although Jordan has already been out to
the cottage three times. The psychological effects of severe weather are almost
as bad as the physical.
Sophie, however, is undaunted
by the cold. She had been out three times by ten o’clock in the morning, and
when I refused a fourth trip she barked at me in frustration. I explained to
her carefully that she would freeze her little tuchus off, but she only cocked
her head an looked at me quizzically. When I finally let her out about
lunchtime, she wandered around as though it were a spring day. No squirrels to
chase today and few birds to catch her eye. She looked hopefully at the main
house, perhaps for a glimpse of Charlie the kitten, and then she reluctantly
came in. She has not, however, learned to close the door behind herself, so
each time she pushes the door open, I have to dislodge my lap blanket and get
up to close the door. She is now ensconced in the wing chair, snoring softly.
It’s a comforting sound.
If the phrase “Snow PTSD” got
my attention, so did the title of this morning’s sermon: “Arthritis of the
soul.” Russ Peterman preached, to a very sparse crowd, about forgiveness. Somewhere
in there was the thought that God forgives all of us—and in this day and world,
my thoughts immediately go to trump and Greg Abbott. How can God forgive them
when they show no remorse, no repentance, no sign of changing their ways. In
fact, they seem bent on doubling down. But, according to the sermon, there are
some things that forgiveness is not: condoning—you don’t have to approve of the
action, whatever is t; forgetting—you don’t have to forget that the offense happened;
reconciling—you don’t necessarily have to hug and make up, things may never be
the same again; and, justice—if justice is called for, forgiveness doesn’t
alter that. That made a lot of sense to me.
Stressing that if we cling to
resentment, it eats away at us, he quoted Ann Lamott’s familiar line: “It’s
like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” It gives you arthritis
of the soul. It was a sermon I needed to hear, not only because of the cruelty
of men like trump and Abbott—they are such public figures, for better or worse,
that we are painfully aware of their transgressions. But the truth is that the
world is too full of people like that. But an even bigger truth, to me: I don’t
know about you, but there are a couple
of people in my personal life that I need to forgive. I’m working on it, and
the sermon helped.
In this cold weather, it’s
easy, especially for those of us in our “golden” years, to be more aware of
arthritis. For some, it is a crippling thing, but for many of us it’s a lot of
little aches and pains that grow worse with cold weather. So it is with
arthritis of the soul. The isolation and depression of an extreme cold spell
makes it easy to fan the flames of resentment and exacerbate arthritis of the
soul. Letting go is hard, but none of us want to be that guy down the street
who is crippled with anger and hate.
Stay warm and safe my friends.
