Gray. Neither light nor dark.
Today is the last day of Christmas. The weather is neither bitter cold nor sunny, but somewhere in between. A chilly, dreary in between. My mood is a wintry mix of melancholy and musing with dribbles of gratitude stirred unevenly together into an overcast hue. The gray has endured for too many days. Becky is out of town for a few days. The government is partially shut down with no sunshine in the forecast. It rained last night and rain is expecting to arrive again by noon, so I am shoehorning in a walk on the wet pavement while I can. I’m so tired of the gray. It’s seeping in everywhere. Between the sky and the tarmac, the world is just too monochromatic today.
But then I get out of my head and allow the Spirit to move through the cataract that the gray has layered over my mood. Now I’m seeing that the gray makes the bare trees pop. All their potential spring growth held back by the cold gray, but waiting patiently to burst forth, just like the fat buds on the rhododendrons below, reaching skyward for the meager light.
The gray is beginning to frame color and texture that I was otherwise overlooking. The trees have invited me to search deeper. I see red berries on holly and nandina, shiny baubles on Christmas wreaths that linger on front doors on this twelfth day of feast. Fuzzy brown underbellies of magnolia leaves contrast with their glossy green flipsides. Empty Adirondack chairs sit lonely in front yards, flat broad arms waiting to welcome guests as the weather warms and the sky brightens.
Soon I return indoors where the gray of storage boxes lurk in the basement, ready to consume again the holiday ornaments, placemats and strings of colored lights. It’s usually a chore but I strive this time to treat it as a pilgrimage through holidays past, allowing gray to highlight the sentiment that each ornament is soaked in. Like amaryllis bulbs that are spent after a Christmas bloom, I plunge each item back into the darkness until next year’s Advent awakening.
I am fortunate to be married to someone who cherishes Christmas and all its trappings. I grew up with mostly negative memories associated with this and most holidays. Christmas meant a plastic tree, unusable gifts, and watching and waiting to see when and how badly my father would get drunk. After 40 years of adulthood, it’s amazing how easily those childhood tapes replay each year. Christmas can still be chocked full of disappointments, a gray pall over the red, green and tinsel.
But then I see ornaments with the boys’ names on them. There are personalized stockings for the dogs, including some that have gone on to glory. I enjoy the challenge of packing everything just so in my hyper-organized manner, trying to bring order to chaos in so many aspects of the moment. A grin appears on my face. The gray is neither light nor dark. It just is what it is and I am left to decide how I want to interact with it. The gift of choice is a gift of grace, of free will. I choose to unwrap gratitude, even if it takes a little work to find it amidst the wrapping tissue and fallen needles.
Kommentare