Prepared

May 9th, 2020

A few days ago the inviting sun drew me out for a run. 

I moved aside to give her space to wheel down the sidewalk as she passed, walker in one hand, dog leash in the other. “Well you’re dressed for the weather!” she chirped as I passed, and pulled on her khaki jacket with a wrinkled hand.  “Why am I wearing this?”

She was commenting on the layer I had shed as I warmed up to my run, letting the wet spring air cool my skin.  “We’re enjoying this spring weather!” I smiled across the safe distance between us, grateful for a cheerful greeting, grateful for her.  As I jogged on, I thought of some words I wrote on another December day –  words that speak to me about expectation and preparation in a whole new way today.

Words I was reminded of yesterday… and today…as the snowflakes fly on this first week of May.

December 21st, 2019

The snow-ice underneath my feet crunches with each step – the wind stinging alive my cheeks and trying to slide down my zippered  neck. The sky mostly grey, with a little sun peering through.   This is exactly where I need to be,  blood pumping, body moving, warming from the inside, breathing fresh.

This time in the out – of doors, (even though my body is telling me I haven’t been moving enough, and the girl running past is going twice the pace and probably hitting her 10 k mark while I eke out maybe 2 ) … still this break in laundry and food prepping, gift readying and e-mail writing,  this break from sitting, is a gift.

Yesterday, the sun was sparkle-shining on the snow, and I huddled out of the store and bee-lined to my car.  I could have walked the few stores over, but shoulders tense, even 60 seconds felt like too much December-cold. Nope, not worth it.  Going to drive over to the other side of the parking lot – even though it’s not best for my body or my gas tank.

Thoughts turn around this morning, as my feet fall in rhythm with the crunch, crunch.  This cold we fight hard against,  survive, tense and hurrying to the next warm place. We huddle from the uncomfortable,  stinging fingers and toes, chilling us from outside in, hurrying us into the next warm building.

But those times when we plan and prepare, pick out the leggings to line our jogging pants, the layer under the windbreaker (didn’t get that quite right today), the hat to cover our ears just – so, socks that don’t leave an inch of ankle to wind’s chill – we can turn our faces into the cold and drink in the freshness, the alive, the cool against the warmth of our bodies.

With every year, it seems to be harder, this winter cold. Easier to complain, to just survive the walk from the store to the car. Get through the shoveling, run the garbage to the curb, rush back inside. Stay in on a snowy night, the roads too slick and slippery.

But I remember the moonlit time, when Dad packed up the poles and skiis and took 10 year old me up to Gatineau park. Warm jacket and mittened hands – prepared for a beautiful night. And it was.

I remember the forest walk on an overnight stay at Mac Skimming Farm in grade 3, when we bundled up and crunched pop candies that glowed in the dark on a night-time walk. Magic.

I remember the week-end we piled in the car, friends, snowpants, skiis, and shovels to help fellow cars out of the ditch on our way to find powdered hills from the recent snow dump – no thought of ‘Maybe we shouldn’t drive 4 hours in a blizzard when we can’t see where we’re supposed to turn for the whiteness?‘ Just skiis floating over snow and laden forest trees covered in marshmallow whiteness.

Stunning quiet.

So worth it.

I want to remember that beauty, that alive, that “I’m here for this“. So that winter doesn’t become a blur of surviving one cold day to another.

I want to remember so that I can prepare. Plan for the discomfort of wind stinging cheeks until the alive feeling follows. Plan for the layers needed to ward off the chill (even though I don’t get it quite right…usually a cold toe or too-sweaty head at some point).

If I’m expecting them – and looking ahead – maybe it will be easier to embrace even the frosty below-zero days.

If I’m expecting the cold in the season I’m in…the icy chill, the stinging wind…I can do my best to wrap myself in Hope for harder days. In Love.  In words of Truth. In Community. In Togetherness. In trusting that what follows will bring Life. I won’t always get it right, most often I’ll forget a layer or plan my run too far for the thickness of my socks. But when I look back at a string of cold days, I will see the moonlit moments on the other side of a cold night, powdery snow slopes after the treacherous drive, the glow and sparkle on a dark winter walk.

The cold clear air bringing alive my lungs on a morning jog.

And I will be glad I was there for it.