JANUARY END

Winter in Rochester is like no other place I can remember.


One of my favorite books, Steinbeck's “The Winter of My Discontent,” resonated with me for many years. I am feeling a lot like Ethan lately.

He has a good life, a beautiful family and the respect of his community. But there is something missing and we journey with him as he weaves through years of ambiguity to find the meaning of what is real and what is merely a dream. Discovering the magnitude of feelings behind true love and the trauma that attaches itself to it.

The snow is piled high outside our window here at the lake, a beautiful sight to behold. Even before the sun rises the brightness of the flakes reflects off the water, giving the morning a surreal glow all around us. It is both calming and invigorating at the same time.

I sit and watch the ducks as they dive with the sunrise, looking for breakfast, exercising their freedom.

I wonder if they realize how lucky they are.

Winter has been steady and hard this year, the ground hardening and unwilling to accept the snow as it melts, providing drinks for the roots of the mighty weeping willow outside my window. At times steam arises from the water as it hits the air, warmer than usual with foggy mists hovering over the waves.

I sit with my husband as we sip our coffee in silence, enjoying the quiet and the presence of each other. We have only been together for a short time, but it is as if we have known each other for years on end. Perhaps in another life we were lovers, or maybe even companions to others. Whatever the origin, we are soul mates.

I am now content to raise animals as the next best thing to being a mom to babies, now grown and producing babies of their own. The dogs are like those little faces now, watching out for me as dearly as I do them. They sit silently at our feet, also enjoying the luxury of time and quiet this blissful morning produces.

My real babies are gone, off on lives of their own with adventures and missteps along the way. It is both a joy and heartbreak to watch them as they walk in one direction, only to realize they have to double back and try again.

So the winter of my discontent this year is not really that of disharmony or anxiousness, of longing or vanishing “what ifs” like the vapors of the fog on the water.

It is realizing that I have so much yet to do in this life, and I only have so much time left. I will not miss another minute of it.

I hope you realize how wonderful life is and the opportunities awaiting you, only a breath away. Don’t waste a moment of it.

Like the leaves of the weeping willow outside my window, I will not let them die on the vine.