the good ol' days
estimated read time: 3.5 minutes
The blanket of depression I usually feel this time of year has been replaced with a blanket of snow, and who am I to question such magic? Sledding with Ollie and Craig is the medicine I needed, shrieking with joy as we crest the hill in our neighborhood - a core memory for all of us - and it won’t be too much longer until we can’t all fit on the same sled. Also, nothing makes me feel cooler than wearing sunglasses in the snow.
Winter means waking up in darkness. As I drink my chai tea and pore over this week’s New York Times (oof), I remind myself to look out the window at the sun easing into the sky. Rising a couple of minutes earlier each day, it’s as if someone drizzled a spoonful of honey along the horizon. All of a sudden, the golden light stretches into our sunroom, saying hello.
Ollie wakes up and sometimes wants to cuddle in bed for a few minutes before greeting the day. As a baby, he was anti-cuddle, so I take these moments and cherish them like I do my lungs, for this is what the circle of life is all about.
He wraps his arms around my neck as we breathe in harmony. I gaze at his bedroom walls - Spiderman, watercolor paintings, ripped packaging from his Sonic the Hedgehog comforter that he insisted on taping above his bed. I click my internal camera, wishing I could pour these memories in a Pensieve to revisit when I’m old and gray (IYKYK). But alas, all we have is now. The only true moment is this one. The best way to know the sweet taste of cinnamon is to sprinkle some on toast, and close your eyes while the flavors wash over you like summer rain.
Do I think about the future? Oh sure, I catch glimpses of its possible glory: me crossing the finish line of the NYC marathon; me with my best friends in Alaska for my 40th; me with Craig and Ollie in Greece for our 10-year wedding anniversary; me sobbing at Ollie’s high school graduation, feeling pride rise up like a tide. But right now I’m reading a book about a mom of three who is tragically hit and killed while on a morning run, and I’m reminded that no one is promised a tomorrow. Still, I lace up my sneakers and head outside hoping for the best. What else can we do?
The series finale of The Office is one I can never tire of. The culmination of my favorite TV series shows its characters going their separate ways, reminiscing about their time together selling paper at Dunder Mifflin. After Dwight and Angela’s wedding, the staff head back to the office - drinking, dancing, basking in one another’s presence.
Although supremely human, and therefore subject to a multitude of disagreements and grievances over the years, when it’s time to look back over their years together at Dunder Mifflin, they are all in agreement: it was wonderful. I have yet to watch this episode without crying. We see each unique character on their personally paved path: Michael as a Dad in Boulder; Dwight and Angela running the 1,600-acre beet farm inherited from Aunt Shirley; Jim and Pam moving to Austin so Jim can pursue his dream of working at his own startup; Creed, improbably, with the voice of an angel.
The episode ends with Andy Bernard looking at the camera and saying:
“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ol’ days…before you’ve actually left them.” -Andy Bernard, May 2013
Ed Helms delivers the line perfectly - smiling gently, holding back tears, heart on his sleeve. It’s a perfectly normal thing to say and feel, a sentiment I know all too well. I felt it at my high school graduation, my college graduation, my last day in New Zealand, my last day cleaning off my flower-farmer boots in Hāna. How human it is to be so busy living that we forget to notice we’re inside the moments we’ll miss.
If I have one wish for myself, it’s that I don’t have to look back in order to be grateful. While researching ways to lessen my anxiety, I was reminded of a practice I used in my early twenties: look at your hands. Say out loud: these are my hands. Relax them. Flex them. Do jazz hands. Memorize the freckles and the lines. Ground yourself, slow your breath, focus your attention. These are my hands.
And now look up. This is your life. The perfect snow for packing a snowball. The only person who calls you Mommy begging for one more sled down the hill. Air as crisp as an apple in September, toes tingling with cold, and the promise of hot tea just ahead.
Standing here, I don’t have to wish. I know.
.
What a gorgeous piece, Katie, just radiant, and I thought I'd answer your brilliance with some of Margaret Atwood's- her poem "You Begin." In their fullness, they conjure each other.
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
Time is a wonder, fluid and shifting. A song popped into my mind , which I cannot listen to without tearing up. Jim Croce, a little corny and so poetic.
“ if I could save time in a bottle, If words could make wishes come true, then I’d save every day till eternity passes away, just to spend it with you.” For my sister.