Note No. 8

WINTER |01.15.24

Note To Self, In January

You will approach the new year wanting to keep everything simple. You will download a meditation app, sign up for yoga, make a schedule. Your schedule will be too ambitious and it will fail; you will decide you don’t thrive that way anyway. You will want Christmas gone, noticing the clutter on tabletops, on the mantel, by the back door. You will clean out closets and drawers unexpectedly. You will fill the refrigerator with fruit and cheese and vegetables and you will cook dinner more often, at least at first. You will want nothing but soup. You will have a sweater in every room, hung on the bannister, over chairs and on the tops of doors. You will be cold. Your hands will crack, your skin will be dry and tight across your legs. You will curse the fact that you must coat yourself in lotion, and then you’ll love the smell and feel of the lotion on your skin. You will look outside and see the trees — bare — and you will think immediately about the beach. You will remember that there’s a trip to the ocean in August, and you will feel saved. You will see the wind from inside the house, the trees back and forth, and you’ll put your hand up to the window pane to feel how cold it is. You will exclaim that you are never going outside again, that the wind is your enemy. You will remark that you are, in fact, a black bear, and you will sleep. You will drink herbal tea. Your fuzzy socks will pile up at the end of the bed, underneath the sheets, the blanket, the down comforter. You will be hard to get out of bed in the morning. Your children will be sick, on and off, on and off; you will be lucky if everyone is in school a full week. You will be in pjs by 7pm on any night that you can, and you will sit in front to the fire every chance you get. Stedman will force you outside, and you will agree only because you are vain, noticing how pale you are from being inside most of the time. You will still resist, irritated. You will walk the loop with him, overdressed, and if the sun peeks out, you will instinctively stop and turn your face in that direction, hoping for warmth and the sun’s touch on your face. You will think of summer again. You will hate that it is dark early, but you will eat earlier and turn in earlier. You will worry about your health, your age. You will need to get out and see friends but you won’t want to. You will make yourself and you will laugh. If you are sitting, you will be under a blanket. You will look out towards February and think of Valentines Day, your anniversary, spring break. You will count the days until January is over and you will pray it doesn’t snow. When it does, you will love how quiet everything is, and then you’ll want it gone. You will drink more tea and buy more lotion and wear more fuzzy socks. You will wonder again why you are so tired. You will hear your friends telling you to lean into winter, listen to Philip Glass, wear your favorite sweaters. You will try. You will decide to love the sky at 5pm, the stars at night, the clean air, the birds. But mostly you will wait for the Earth and Sun to decide that the growing degree days have tipped in your favor, when at the end of the street, the first purple crocuses will appear.

LISTENING | music and books

photo by Alice Oakey

The Bible in a Year with Nicky and Pippa Gumble — If you’ve ever been curious about doing this, this one is doable, I promise you. I opted into the 25 minute version, but there is also one that is 10 minutes, and a version for youth. Each day covers a different theme with a reading from Pslams or Proverbs, the New Testament and the Old Testament, along with commentary. The voice of the man who reads the verses is easy to listen to; even the lineages are enthralling.
My sister recommended Living From a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action by Michael Singer, which is a beautiful compliment to the Bible project. I devoured it in about 3 days. Referencing different religious texts and figures, he discusses the interplay of our minds and hearts, how we hold onto personal garbage that then colors our responses and decision-making, and how we can release these by surrendering to reality. He says that “we should not expect others to think like us, or for the moment to be different than what it is.” So far, it has helped me quiet the low hum of anxiety I live with each day — worth every minute of the 540+. I looked at reviews after I finished, and there are quite a number that call him arrogant and hard to listen to, despite the popularity of his books. I’m curious what you think.
I’ve made another playlist, this time classical. Music and writing are one in the same — there are melodies, harmonies, themes and through lines, rests and white space. It is it’s own form of storytelling. Making this playlist was way harder than I thought it would be, but I included my senior piano piece, some pieces I played (poorly) in high school, tried and true favorites, and a couple from movies and TV (I’m dying for the Richmond Symphony to do the soundtrack from The Crown). The last piece is Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which is a practice in delayed gratification. This is an idea we talk about with our children. See how you feel when you get to minute seven. If you are unmoved, check in and see if you have a soul. Just kidding. (No really. Check.)

GOOD NEWS

Meet baby June. She’s been with us a week. In that time, I’ve gotten nothing done except to take 4 thousand photos, dish out way too many treats and plant my face smack into her fluffy head as much as she’ll let me. She is yummy.

FINAL THOUGHT

artwork by Ed Lowry

This is a page from the Bible of my father’s best friend, Ed Lowry, who passed away last month. His children found endless sketches in his bible like this one, and made copies to share at his service. He was an artist, a poet, and sought after for his wise counsel at work and at home. In one very poignant reflection, Ed was deemed a “servant of words.” I love this idea. We would be wise to consider what we say more carefully, which begins with how we think. Be good to yourself, and kind. It is January, after all.

"You know, a lot of people don’t love themselves. And they go through life with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that you must love yourself. And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that you’ve got to accept yourself." — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lauren