Winter

The calendar says it is winter.  It coulda fooled me.  I expect crocuses to pop at any moment, the grass to grow, the leaves to burst. Oh, yes, the trees are barren and the fresh fruit is from Chile and not Piazza's Fruit Farm. There has been a brief flurry or two, gone in days with rising temps.  The calendar says it is January. Surely it must be March, maybe April. It cannot be winter.  I am not prepared for winter. The seasons are a blur.

The calendar says it is January 12, 2012.  It can't be. I was born in 1951. January 7 would have been Grandma Hess's 121st birthday. She hasn't been gone that long, has she? She died in 1965.....it has been that long.....What happened to all those years?

My much-loved mother-in-law says time goes faster as you get older. She is 83, she should know. How old was she when we first met? 40-something.....

My first grandson is thirteen.  I remember the day he came to be....wasn't it a week ago?

We've been married more than forty years...that can't be right....

So it is the winter of my life. I am not middle-aged (how many live to be 120?).  In my brain I am in springtime.  There should be skin that is petal-soft, long hair that is auburn-from-a-bottle and thick. The eyes should be twinkling and clear, not sparkling from cataract lenses. The vision should be sharp, not riddled with distortion and virtual night blindness. The back should be straight without hurting when I sit too long. My children should be wishes; I am too young to have grown sons and teenage grandchildren.

If I was still in summer, the air would be warm, the sand hot.  We could still go to the drive-in movie and not watch it. My hair would be frosted with premature silver streaks.  I could party, but I never did it when I was of age. Too busy, always too busy to see the calendar changing.

I came awake a bit in the autumn, long enough to see the gold of the leaves, the pumpkins on the doorsteps, the harvest moon. Very slowly I looked around...something was missing...it was autumn, the leaves were falling...we hadn't made our trip to the mountains...we hadn't had enough fresh corn...I must have fallen asleep again, because when I woke up, it was winter.

My hair is silver. My body is overweight, though better than a year ago.  There are days when I feel the winter in me, when I am cold and my joints hurt and I find another wrinkle. I refuse to undress near a mirror. I refuse to have my face in a picture. I feel old, just plain old. I feel like it is a dreary, grey winter day, that I will never see the summer me again, much less the spring one.  There is so much left to do!  Forget the basement.  It isn't important.  Living is.  Gathering nuts for winter; preparing myself for the blizzard that is sure to come.  I need to stock up on milk and honey instead of bran flakes and fish oil capsules.

As I look back over the spring and summer, I take a good long look at myself.

I don't want to be eighteen again, though if it was gifted to me I would use the opportunity to make better decisions.  Thirty would be nice, much like May, but I didn't know that back then. Sixty is just a number, but it is looming like the harvest moon in my line of vision--huge and bright, beckoning and reminding...

I am not ready for winter, neither the environmental one that will be coming any day, nor the physical challenge that I can't avoid. "Make the best. What comes, comes" said Grandma Laura. You were so right, Gram.  I thought it sounded almost silly back then. Now I understand.

I will go snowshoeing with Irene. I will build a snowman with Maddie. I will take a road trip to Baltimore and go whitewater rafting in Ohio. I will kayak on summer days and walk on summer evenings.  I will sit and dream by the lake; I will will find the time to spend with the love of my life.

I can't stop winter, I can only change my attitude toward it.