WINTER THOUGHTS

Winter Sea

This is what's been happening.  We come to the beach for a wintry escape and it is wonderful, cold and bright, waves lapping, starry nights and fresh mornings. Nothing is open, but we bring necessities from home and stop at Friendly Market on the mainland for their prepared chicken-wild rice and shrimp and grits casseroles.  The house is cold, the window cranks need repair but while we were unable to be here the pipes did not freeze and the heat pump did not break.  Only the kitchen faucet is spewing and we need a plumber but that is all and we are relieved. We are so glad to be here.  The bedroom refuses to warm up and I put on extra blankets.  I'm missing Mr.Wiggles, our little maltipoo who the last time we brought him, fifteen and with only months to live, could no longer do the stairs.   

At the same time, the fires in Los Angeles are still burning.  So much suffering.  Our own western North Carolina has not rebuilt yet.  Many lives there were lost.  My husband and I have friends moving from this life to the next, three in these past months, all from cancer, two after long debilitating treatments. These are serious times in our life and maybe in yours too.  I would not be surprised.  We fear power-bloated billionaires and warmongers.  Many diseases do not wait for us to age. Anxiety is in the air.  Fragility abounds.  

And yet, life goes on. That's what life does.   From the ashes like the Phoenix the sun rises daily. The moon as well. All is not vanity. The most miraculous things continue to happen.  We see on TV the gratitude of those who, yes, lost their homes but not their lives.  We see the superhuman bravery of the firefighters.  We see goodness and compassion.

Each morning we all find something for which to give thanks.  Tea or coffee, children or grandchildren, jobs to do and friends to see.  Here the day is bright and cold again. This visit the shore is wide, the dunes rebuilt by last year's storms. Some visits no shore at all, steps and decks washed away.  The wind alone decides whether to take or give. The sea can be as dangerous as fire.  

Precarious as life is, who isn't grateful to be alive?  Who wouldn't be grateful to take a walk, even with a bad back, by the windy shore, bundled and dodging the incoming waves?  We rebuild after hurricanes, floods and fires, not just shelters for our bodies but places of friendship and love for our hearts. We try our best to keep our families safe, even as they grow or diminish.  With each loss we recommit to life. 

When someone dies, we are thankful that they didn't suffer.  If they suffered, we are thankful that their suffering is over.  We are thankful that they lived, however long or short.  We would never trade the joy in their living to avoid the pain of losing them.  Our love is strong, and deep.  It abides.

It is a miracle how we are made.  It is a wonder how two people can make a love that lasts a lifetime, from young love to old age, neither straying, nor wanting to, from one another.  It is a wonder as well how two people can meet at any age, after most any disappointment, and find nothing but love and compassion between them.  It is a wonder how we feel for strangers and want to help them, how we see our lives in theirs, how we know that, "There, but for the Grace of God, go I." 

It's not that we manufacture good, I don't think. We're not Pollyannas.  But sometimes the good simply won't let us ignore it.  I've read that we're "hard-wired" (a word I don't like) to look for the negative.  I don't think that's true.  If it were, how in the face of natural catastrophes and greed, would we continue to take such good care of ourselves and others? We have survived because of our better angels. 

Something about the ocean gives rise to these winter thoughts. Something about the vastness of our world, sky, land and sea, makes space for us to look for any blessings we can.  And lo and behold, we find them.  

  

WHAT'S YOUR SIMPLE WINTER THING?

I buy The Simple Things  at my local Barnes and Noble.  Or you can visit www.icebergpress.co.uk. It's a lovely magazine for UK aficionados like myself. I've mentioned before that people write in what their "Simple Thing" is.  Ordinary things like "cold toast with a thick slathering of butter."  Nothing's more British than cold toast (or the word "slathering").  Brits even use a cooling rack to make sure not one bit of warmth is left after toasting.  Perverse, isn't it?  Our simple thing corollary might be "A fried egg on hot buttered toast."  Yes, much more American.   

Winter is such a wonderful time.  When it's not too frigid outside, a lovely simple thing is the outdoor fire pit and a woolly blanket as darkness falls.  Or if the temperature is colder, like it is today, then a crackling fire indoors is the best simple winter thing.  Of course, not everyone wants or has a fireplace.  Candles and fairy lights are good too.  Then watching a movie with the kids or maybe even better, watching something that only we want to see.  My Netflix list is long.  

Remember when Dumbledore said, "One can never have enough socks.  Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair.  People will insist on giving me books." (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)  New socks are a simple winter thing. Or old favorites. Last year I got a pair in my Christmas stocking, and sent out a bunch.  My sweet New Jersey nieces said, "Some people think they are corny but we like them," then sent me this fuzzy polka dot pair by return mail: 

Still, books may be the best winter simple thing. Transporting us to another age or country or emotional state.  Challenging us, absorbing us, every sentence a pause, leading us to thoughts we may never have had before.  Reading the classics does this, Bronte, Dickens, Salinger, Flaubert, Kate Chopin. . . .  Just choosing one to read or reread will transform the whole winter on its own.  Our book club chose The Awakening (1899) set in New Orleans where Chopin's heroine struggles against turn-of-the-century attitudes about femininity and motherhood.  I can't forget that book. 

Of course we can combine a plethora of simple winter things into a glorious day or afternoon or evening--cozy socks, candles lit, with our book, under a woolly throw, tea and hot buttered toast at our side, dog at our feet. . . . Or playing a game with the family in front of the fire while supper simmers. 

What are your simple winter things?   Outdoors or in?  Active or sedentary?  Planned or spontaneous?  Relaxing or invigorating?  There's not a bad choice, is there?  It's a wonderful season!

THE NO-GUILT SEASON

Wishing for Snow

We're in the no-guilt season and I love it.  January is our time to slow down.  We can't hibernate in December.  There's too much to do, too much between Thanksgiving and New Year's.  But not now.  Year-end work rush is over.  The children's excitement has peaked and settled.  Family is gone, guest rooms empty.  Calendars have cleared.  Gardens don't need us.

Fridges have space and we start fresh with simple winter comfort food, stews and soups, roast meats and vegetables.  We're wearing our new sweaters, not shopping for them.  There's nothing to buy or decorate or plan or get ready for.  It is pure and simply time to find what comforts we can and reset.  We can slow life down a little without any guilt.  We can go to bed early.  Oh my.

Where I am it is 5:30 and dark.  The geese have passed overhead and are quiet.  The deer are still grazing about but will bed under the cedars shortly.  The bobcat a relative spied at dusk a day or so ago may still be on patrol, but then so are the coyotes.  We might hear some noise later from those predators.  In all, it's a chilly perfect mid-winter evening. 

What can we do during this less-hectic time?  There's so much.  We can go for bundled-up walks in nature.  My husband and I took one yesterday, January 1st, a day off.  We can start our winter routine, the most un-fancy dinners we can think of, meatloaf and jacket potatoes, or waffles, or cabbage soup.  Early baths or showers, a little reading or journaling, TV or podcast and bedtimes for everyone.

Winter has such charm with little effort, don't you think?  Birds at the feeder.  Bare, sculptural branches, winter berries, brighter stars, air with a freshness you don't find in any other season.  Even the train whistle is clearer as it fades.  People leave work earlier too, if they can.  Schools close for snow and everything stops.

At home, too.  Blankets and throws about, clusters of candles (we have a Scrap Exchange where you can buy fistfuls of used candles for 5¢ each), warm drinks, old flannels and knitwear, cozy socks.  I read more in winter than any other time of year.  Someone said that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body, and that seems right.  We drink hot chocolate before bed, too, a treat saved  just for this season.  

It's good for our children to see us slow down, to have time for real conversations, so when they are adults they will know how to slow down too.  They see us make a living.  They can see us make a life.  A slower pace helps us care for our souls and theirs.  

We need our winter pause.  We need a month that doesn't rush, but lingers. That month is here.   

                        In peace, Nina Naomi

 

A YEAR THAT HAS NEVER BEEN

As this year becomes the next, My first feeling is gratitude. 

All 2024 I've stewed over politics and now it's done and will be worse next year.  For two years now we've grieved over the same wars and the misery of hostages, Gazans, Ukrainians, Syrians and more.  For decades we've fought for gun safety and yet our children are calling 911 to report shooters in their schools.  Forever, we face our own or another's chronic or unexpected illnesses. . . .  

but for a time, as this year becomes next, we put these cares aside.  We have to.  We cannot live always on high alert for suffering.  We need times to look for joy.  We need to quietly watch the Cardinal at the feeder, admire the earth and sky, and re-count our blessings.  

So we put on our party clothes and toast the New Year.  The gunshots we hear are celebratory.  The greetings are happy.  late or early, we climb into our beds to embrace each other and bid the old year goodbye.  Or if we'd rather, we ignore it all and have a lovely night off, knowing we wake to a shiny new year.

Maybe that's why at Christmas we sing, "Joy to the world."  Not just to prepare Christians for the birth of a Savior, but to remind us all that we ourselves were born to be joyous.  We have a built-in need for happiness.  Babies know this.  They wiggle and smile and reach for us.  They teach us to love them.  Just days ago Christ came as such a one, tender and mild.

Each year the greatest gifts are life and love.  Never a year goes by that we do not give and receive love.  We keep old photos of those who nurtured our own babyhoods.  We receive phone calls and texts and gifts and visits.  The odds and ends we keep because of love are scattered about. On holidays I get out a three-tiered serving plate made by my daughter.  I wear a circle pin picked out by my son.  I hunt in my closet for something vintage for my granddaughter.  

It could be that some of us lost someone this year, expected and timely or grievously not.  Either way, we mourn.  Yet each of us is here in this irresistible world of beauty and longing to carry on in their memory.  So, yes, as the earth turns, the moon wanes and the sun rises, we can look forward to more good things, more challenges to be sure, but blessings just as surely.  

Have you noticed that whatever our age we feel we've lived long?  Forty-year-olds think they are old, thirty-year-olds the same. Only at the end might we feel that we haven't had time enough to love this earth and all its bounty.  We want another season.  

So here it is for us, 2025, a year that has never been.  We are its first inhabitants.  Welcome, new year.  We are grateful to meet you.  

                Nina Naomi

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS FUTURE, CHRISTMAS PAST

I am writing this the morning before Christmas Eve, 2024. Two mornings from now the Christ child will have been born again and that evening the first candle of Hanukkah will be lit.  The candles on the Advent wreath will have given way to the first candle on the menorah.  Christian homes will have red and gold paper strewn about, children over-sugared and cranky, and everyone needing a day of rest.  In Jewish homes, gift-opening may just be beginning. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, also known as the Feast of Dedication.  Thus the beliefs of many flourish in their winter celebrations.  

When we were children, our birthdays and Christmases were magical.  Especially when we believed in Santa Clause, but even later as we were off school and there was snow, enough for snowforts and sledding and snowball fights.  We didn't have to shop or plan or cook until later in our lives.  As children, Christmas didn't put us in debt.  At our house, Grandma Giesler brought the ham, or some years hosted a turkey dinner in her dining room.  We cousins were spoiled. 

Years later my mother, by then a grandmother, made Christmas stockings for all of us--red quilted fabric with green rick-rack, trimmed with appliqués, beads and jingle bells.  We draw names, like a secret Santa gift exchange. In this way, she is still part of our celebration.  My Grandma Giesler's lace tablecloth has been our tree skirt for years. 

One year I made Christmas dinner in borrowed electric skillets and served it from the Clubhouse of the apartment complex where we lived.

Now I am third from the oldest in my immediate family.  More Christmases behind than ahead. They are still magical.  Everything about the preparation is magical.  I get to cut the greens from our forest, the berried branches from the holly and fill the vases with fragrant pine. I tell Alexa to "play classical Christmas music."  I wait for gifts to arrive on our stoop.  I go to cheerful, busy grocery stores to shop.  We keep the Advent candles company each Sunday and still send and receive a few Christmas cards in the mail.  Our Jewish friends are almost ready for their holy days to begin.  

And the celebrations will continue.  The shortest week of the year, between Christmas and New Year's, most of us see more family and friends.  Even those who work those days, get an extra day at New Year's.  The nights are still long and dark and give us breathing room.  Don't we always look forward to a new year?  

I hope to someday be remembered as my own grandmothers are, as someone who gave love and special attention, who imparted faith and joy and whom they might wish, in some way, to emulate.  

Merry Christmas to all.          Nina Naomi

CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE

A quick thought standing at the kitchen sink:  I've almost got a handle on Christmas. A moment of pride. The menu in my head, the gifts mostly under the tree.  I'm not adrift and I'm the one who has to make it happen. I plan, I buy, I cook, I decorate, I wrap, I stack the log rack. I, I, I.

Then minutes later, looking out the window at the red sun behind the trees:  I don't make Christmas happen at all.  Whether I'm stressed or harried, the house a mess, the tree lights tangled, the cookies store-bought, the late arrival of a gift or two, nothing is about me.

Whatever made me think I needed a "handle" on Christmas?  When has that ever mattered? 

We will go to one of the many Christmas Eve services and sing Silent Night, Holy Night by candlelight. The family members who spend Christmas Eve at our house will arrive somewhere near the allotted time.  We will, in fact, have too much food for our small group.

The next day we will unwind, my husband and I and the day after more grandchildren will come.  No one cares if wrapping paper is strewn and the ham or turkey is left-over. Hopefully we will count our many blessings, our OK-to-good health, the warmth of our homes, the love of friends and family.    

Hopefully we will remember that Christmas is not about Santa or jingle bells or how many gifts we give or receive.  We will remember that Christmas is about our faith in the Christ child who was born in a manger to die and be resurrected on Easter Sunday and give us eternal life.  

And you and I will say, "In this we believe."  Lord, let us pray.  AMEN

  
 

THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN'T LOVE

The deer come by tonight at dusk

While I am standing still.

Night falls so early as it must.

I wait for dark until

It catches me by quick surprise,

The sun to sudden drop.

How cold and bright our winter eyes.

I wish that time would stop.

The day, bare trees, December stars, 

The white tail boundless free.

its home is one without false wars.

where I would rather be.

 

On cue I see the geese in flight.

They loudly cross the sky

To give the rising moon a fright.

Whole towns hear them squawk by.

It's darker now and all I feel

Is breath of faun and doe

Beneath the cedars settling in.

The geese are quiet too.

A Silent Night is such release,

To huddle close like deer.

Or wait for morning like the geese,

With nothing frightening near.

It's true there's nothing we can't love

If greed we keep at bay.

If our heart's focus is above

Where saints and angels play.

It helps to see the doe and stag,

The goose and gosling too.

The waxing and the waning moon,

The people called the poor.

 

It helps to know we're not alone, 

That we are creatures sure.   

That what's at stake is life on earth.