On Winter Solstice Eve (20th December) I had a meltdown.
It had rained all morning, a deluge, heavy enough to swamp the driveway and footpath in front of our cottage. The gutters overflowed and cascaded a wall of water in front of my eyes as I peered out through the front window, trying to pierce the gloom.
A task I had been putting off, for months really, came back to haunt my vision. I needed to cut a drainage gutter across the driveway to divert the stormwater away from the front yard, and now, yet again, my procrastination was laid bare.
Not to Self: Don’t put off yard/cottage maintenance stuff, because you might have to do it in a deluge.
I decided to wait until the rain at least eased off, and turned away to do other things, when I suddenly started crying, for no apparent (at that moment) reason. Not the sort of crying where your eyes leak a little, no these were deep sobs that felt as though they might crack my ribs on their way out of my body.
I’ve had quite a few crying jags over the past year, (who among us hasn’t?) but this one laid me low.
Incoherent words of grief and rage spewed forth from my mouth and mingled with my tears, and I couldn’t stop.
I quite literally couldn’t stop. Every time I drew a breath in more sobs and roars of pain came back out.
I dragged myself into the bathroom, (the only room in the house without windows) hoping the darkness would help me find some anchor to stem the tide.
Didn’t work. I was going to have to ride this tsunami to its end.
Letting go, is never an easy thing to do for us humans. We’re conditioned from cradle to grave, to strive for control, of everything, over everything. Our bodies, our families/friends, our environment, and we equate taking action, any action, with control. Needless to say, we don’t succeed all that often. A conclusion that is almost always obscured by all that action-ing we’re so busy doing.
Anyway, I stopped actioning and returned to the window and the pouring rain, and fully released the wave.
Nothing lasts forever, (although it was beginning to feel like it) not even rib-cracking emotional meltdowns, and at last I could draw a breath and release it without sobbing.
And then, as though someone turned off a tap, the heavy rain stopped … and it started to snow. Big fat splats of snow that very quickly covered the draining stormwater in a scum of ice, then layers of snow.
Those who know me know that snow is my thing … it lasted through Winter Solstice day, through Christmas and Boxing Day, and only finished melting the day before yesterday.
It was the most perfect timing of any snowfall, ever.
My snow, my footsteps, my farewell to 2020
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