January 6th
We go to sleep, my family and I, held in the sweet anticipation of the season’s first snowfall. I don’t know if it’s the excitement, but Aspen awakes at midnight and can’t get back to sleep.
At 2:30 am, all of my back-to-sleep efforts failing, my stress levels rising and patience evaporating, I give in. Accept it, accept it, I tell myself. I take a deep breath and pick her up and say into her hair, “Let’s go look at the snow.” I bring her to the living room and pull back the curtain to show her the beginnings of the storm. The ground has a dusting. Outside it is blue and orange in the way that snow keeps the night lit and visible, reflecting all the ambient light. A smile spreads across both of our faces. And then I refind my breath and my balance and I’m glad to be awake with her, to share in this quiet moment of winter’s arrival.
Plus: I think I want to show Aspen the snow as much as I want to see it for myself. Finally, finally, snow. For there is an anxiety that’s been increasingly at home in my body these last few years: the seasons are, persistently, not as they should be.
Until now, here in the first week of January, we haven’t had even an inch of total snowfall here in Portland, Maine, leaving us 14 inches behind December’s average. The days yo-yo between frigid cold and springtime warm. At Christmas down in Boston, my brother-in-law’s lilac bush was budding.
A few days before Christmas, heavy rain brought the worst flooding to Maine’s Androscoggin River since 1987 (and even that was a flood which happened in late March, on the cusp of spring, not in mid-December).
January 7th
Thirteen inches of fluffy, cold, beautiful snow falls. We eat maple syrup snow cones and dig out winding pathways through the yard and make snow angels and shovel and shovel again and come in for tea and then head back outside, like we’re trying to cram in as much winter as possible. Neighbors go by on cross-country skis and small children are pulled in sleds. Something tight around my heart relaxes.
January 10th
50 degrees, heavy rain, and 60 mph gusts of wind. More flooding. Portland experiences the third highest tide ever recorded. In a matter of hours, the thirteen inches of beautiful snow melts and then is gone. The sun comes out and we wear only light sweaters. On the phone, my friend tells me she’s having trouble shaking a sense of impending doom. We laugh together, uneasily. It’s the same uneasy laugh I shared with my neighbor a day earlier, as we were shoveling snow and waiting for the rain. I can’t shake the tightness that has returned around my heart, either.
January 11th
This is a reality of climate crisis. It will, increasingly, move from facts and data, scientific articles and talking heads, to live here, in the bodies of more and more of us. It will become felt and sensory. Of course, it’s been alive in the body of the Earth and in the bodies of many of Her people for a long time now. People who are seeing their coastlines vanish or their forests burn or their crops parched.
A question comes to live in me: how on Earth—literally, how, on this transforming Earth—do we inhabit our bodies as they inhabit ongoing ecological change and uncertainty?
February 13th
Somehow, an entire month passes since I began this short essay. I haven’t returned to it, perhaps because I’ve been avoiding my own question: “How do we inhabit our bodies as they inhabit ongoing ecological change and uncertainty?” I haven’t arrived at any answers.
The ground outside is, again, bare of snow.
I compel myself to read this question again and to sit with it for a while. Then, I remind myself that to pose such a question is not to demand an answer. I remind myself that, often, the work is to inhabit the question, not to construct a solution. And, also, we have to invite the questions in to inhabit us. Somehow, within the uneasy home of a question, there is both possibility and acceptance—gifts that are not always to be found in the sturdy, unmoving walls of answers.
And perhaps it’s a weak comparison to make, but I keep thinking of Aspen’s trouble sleeping several weeks ago and how, as parents, we intuitively know—even in the moments when we are struggling or falling short—to strive for acceptance, to ground ourselves in love, and then to act from this place of loving acceptance as we continue to put forth effort.
That long, sleepless night, after my daughter and I looked together at the snow, and after one more hour of being awake after that, as the snow continued to fall, I carried Aspen back to bed and we both found our way to sleep. When we woke up, the world had been transformed.
I know it’s not this easy or simple. But I wonder if this experience can offer a small way of pointing to one sort of bodily practice of inhabiting this time, and each of our changing places, and each of our painfully vast questions:
I accept, I accept.
I love, I love.
In loving acceptance, I will, where and how and as I can, bring my body to the work of healing the body of the Earth.
Upcoming Teaching & Workshops
Writing at the Edge (Virtual):
In this time of ongoing ecological transformation, how do we write about our home places? Over three sessions, we'll explore three transitional ecosystems: salt marshes, the fluctuating border between forests and grasslands, and places where human development meets "wilderness." Each offers us a glimpse of what is possible at the edge and invites us to peer at what is held within fluid boundaries. What can be learned from the beings who inhabit these edge-landscapes?
April 11th, 18th, & 25th from 7:00-8:30pm EST
To register, or for more information, click here.
Writing at the Edge (In-Person):
A three-part writing workshop exploring ecology of salt marshes, the legacy and work of Rachel Carson, and how to weave edge-places into our writing in a time of uncertainty. Held at several locations within the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge between Scarborough and Wells, Maine.
Sunday April 28th, Sunday May 5th, and Sunday May 12th from 12:00-1:30pm EST
To register, or for more information, click here.
Great Mother & New Father Conference:
I'm excited to announce that, alongside some incredible writers, musicians, artists, and storytellers, I'll be teaching at the Great Mother and New Father Conference this year, on the theme of "Wayfinding, Unlikely Teachers and Steering into Mystery."
For more information, visit: greatmotherconference.org.
Somebody once said that "out of body experiences are fine and good but I would like to learn how to have an in the body experience". Thank you for your gentle invitation to inhabit our bodies to experience the sweet moments that are possible like your precious time with Aspen when it started to snow, and to be connected with the sometimes painful truths of what is happening around us; and how both the sweetness and the pain can be a call to action to do the healing work that is necessary for the earth that gives us our home and our lives.
I bookmarked this when it first came through my inbox, and this morning, have had the oppotunity to really read it through. The Faith Formation group at the Wakefield church is looking at Climate and Faith in a study from the SALT project, and your piece beautifully intersects with their work. I so appreciate your giving voice to the gnawing sense of dread and doom that can feel pervasive these days, and heightened by these strange and volatile weather patterns and events. No amount of joking or gallows humor fully dissolves this sense of dread. Good stories do, as well as throughtful writing, the wonder of a child, the sweetness of a winter snow, the emotions and expressions that come from the heart, something you do so well. As we go forward together, we may we do it in love, as you so heartfully remind us.