Feelings

Today has been a rare and exquisite kind of day. Though technically winter, this day was stolen from June. I sit typing on the back stoop, at eight at night, barefooted in capris and short sleeves. "78 degrees" states the bank sign across the street. (At least, I think it's 78. I am wearing my glasses, and the prescription is a bit out of date. At any rate, it is definitely 70-something.)

I finally rousted myself out of my hermitage this evening and went for a stroll, ending up at the park. In the bright beginnings of sunset, the park thrilled with human life. Families and peer groups cavorted on the play ground, sand volleyball court, and soccer field. In the midst of softly budding trees, gentle lights, and a few early tulips, I realized the people, too, were beautiful--different colors, different ages, different voices. I stayed a while, then took a final turn around the park to enjoy the little lights glowing yellow against the dusk. A quiet had fallen over the park. People drew together, conversing quietly. "Moma!" a child called from the play equiptment, voicing the draw we feel towards each other as night falls. And yet we lingered there, sipping the last drops of this Sunday evening stolen from summer.

I could almost hear my farmer grandpa voicing his distrust of this weather. I pictured mayhem as tree branches snapped under the weight of snow caught on premature leaves. I wondered, vaguely, if a bare summer would follow all this early flowering--if everything would get frozen. I'm the type who lives with one ear cocked to hear the other shoe begin to drop. This is so that I can perhaps catch it before it causes too much damage. Or else it is so that the damage won't be my fault when it comes because I have done all I could to prevent it. Yes. But the weather, now, that's out of my control. And tonight I am inclined to accept it as a kind of gift. Walking back from the park, I felt young and hopeful and maybe even beautiful. I twirled in the yard and lay down in the grass, looking up, up at a pinprick star that somehow manage to defy the dulling city lights. I felt the desire for a hot dog.

This is the delight of city life. One can saunter down a block or two and buy a hot dog at eight at night. Then one can swagger back, delightfully individual beside the perpetual flow of cars, eating the hot dog. It was good, but could have used more ketchup. It has been nice to feel so happy and spring-ish today. In addition to being a creature waiting for shoes to drop, I am also a creature of fluctuating feeling. My father said one day, as I drooped into the living room as a teen, "Barn Swallow, when you are happy, you are really happy--and I like to see you happy--but when you are down, you get really down. Maybe you can not let it control you so much." I have told my brother that I wish I could be a deep, still water person--someone whose life goes deep and doesn't fluctuate much on the surface. But I am coming to accept that I am not, and will never be, that. Sometimes I feel deep winter, and sometimes I feel spring, and once in a while perhaps even summer-in-winter. These seasons of feeling can open my eyes to aspects of life I couldn't perceive in different moods, and I like that. On the down side, I tend to distrust the happy moments. It's the shoe thing.

But tonight, feeling happy and lovely--I remembered a thing that I have been learning. The feeling of hope comes and goes. But my hope is not in the feeling, so I may enjoy its presence without fearing its passing. My hope is in the Lord. He loves me, and has seen me through a thousand feelings. He never changes. The surface of my life skips and dances, slows and mopes, but its source is the clean and never ending spring of God's life in me through Christ. I accept the gift of today, I look to God for tomorrow, and maybe, someday, I'll learn to stop listening for that shoe. Anyhow, if we get a big snow storm and all the trees fall down--we'll get a Snow Day. And those are lovely!