Letter 2

Long Shadows - Ode to letting go

Dear Reader,

I hope this finds you in a quiet moment. If it doesn’t I hope you can carve one out some time today –  space where you can sit inside your head and your mind can wander to something that isn’t on a list or calendar.

These are the minutes that stitch together creativity and ideas, in my mind. I can sit at my computer for hours trying to think of something to write about, but a walk in the cold or a moment’s pause between folding laundry consistently brings something to mind.

One of these daily zone-outs inspired a theme I have been thinking of lately about letting go.

A few years back, when we were amid the months of spending a lot of time at home or in our yard I wondered how it might be when everything “opened up” again. And, here we are. Holiday plans are in full swing. Schedules are filling up. Masks are optional.

The biggest revelation of this is how I have “let go” of so much. Will things work out as intended? Maybe. Possibly? With a twist, perhaps. Other things I used to do are no longer on my radar. Our daughter asked to design our holiday card this year and I let go of control of creating it. My kids take care of their assignment due dates for school now. I have stopped feeling the optimistic anticipation or excitement of spinning whatever plans are made into the best, happiest experience. I can’t control what happens. But afterward, afterward, I am grateful for what was.

Temperatures are set to plummet tomorrow and snow is likely. It’s the Winter Solstice, and I am excited. We will be tilted the farthest from the Sun than we have been since last year at this time. If you catch your shadow it will seem very tall. Days will grow longer from this day forward and it’s another reminder to let go and keep taking steps forward. So what if I will never be as hilarious of a writer as Susan Orlean when she is drunk on Twitter. Or as effortlessly cool as Patti Smith when she pops by her home book collection and spontaneously makes a video recommendation. But I will keep writing and somehow find my own way. Hope you can keep doing whatever it is you do for your own journey.

Tomorrow I will open the front door and inhale deeply. My mind will remember shoes crunching snowpacks on moonlit walks near Flat Creek when we lived in Wyoming, of the late nights when the bus rolled next to dirty parking-lot snow mounds after a basketball game, of playing night tackle football in college when a snowstorm shockingly canceled classes.

And I will yell to the kids: “Come smell the air. Breathe deep. It’s going to snow.”

Warmly,

Traci