Life After Peace Corps - Christmas 2014

December 25, 2014

Christmas Day

I usually get up at 5:00 but the holiday lazes me, now is 7:00 and I am still in bed.  Winter dawn comes later and later, and the globe seems to be slowing down every day.   I toss and turn, cannot stand it anymore, so I get up, make myself a cup of coffee and begin my Christmas day.

It is always a consoling feeling to sip hot drink and watch the winter saga playing outside the windown.  A sparrow flies in and sits on my balcony railing.  I welcome wildlife on this late December day.  Most birds already migrate to the south.  I wonder why this little creature still lingers here.   Seconds later, the bird takes a dive and disappears.  The persistent rain for the past few days finally ceases.  Sun comes out and displays a brilliant sunrise.  During the night the weather has moderated.  It turns out to be a warm Christmas morning after all.  I slide my balcony door open and let in some cool fresh air.   Instantaneously, my plants react with a positive acknowledgment.   Flashes of light scattered over them, they tilted at exactly the right angle to reflect the rays of the eastern sun.   Being trapped indoor, they have been unhappy for a long time, I know. 

My gaze turns back to the outside world.  Across the street, a tall handsome hickory tree was once thick with summer foliage now stands bare and stark, not a single leave remains on its bough.  For the past few days, with rain coursing down it and dripping down from its branches, there is now a sad beauty about the tree.  Summer diversifies, winter simplifies. Winter color is always gray and dull but yet peaceful and serene.   Winston Churchill once wrote in his wartime speeches, “O Lord, support us all through the day long, until the shadows lengthen and evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.  Then in Thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”  Winter is the time to rest and to regenerate.  I am certain, with the first hint of spring; young leaves of this hickory tree will unfold in no time.

After breakfast, I start taking my morning walk to the Four-mile run creek.  Recent sousing rain has given the river a full force of life.  Instead of murmuring quietly, today, the brook is gashing, plunging, tumbling, in some places rumbling.  “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water”.  I have seemed what water does to the canyons of southern Utah.  The incessant water movement shapes and adds characters to the river.  Idyllic pools, deep water pockets, and singing cascade are formed.  In places, the soft river surface reflects images of the forest and blue sky.   The woods, in the mid of a cold harsh winter, still exerts a magnetic spell.  It is a delight to walk along its meandering bank and watch a Christmas morning progressing inside this urban forest.

 

No one really comprehends God’s intention to give the earth four distinct seasons.  For some folks winter may serve no purpose.  They dislike winter so much that they prefer to live permanently in the south.    As I increase my walks in the woods and get closer to nature, winter, like spring, summer and fall has its unique allure.  Maybe it is the crisp cold air, or perhaps it is the stillness and tranquility, quite possible the aloof and solitude. 

In a bleak and, to most, cheerless day of winter, when most people are thinking of their warm cozy home, “I come to my woodlands walk as the homesick go home” Henry David Thoreau loved his Walden Pond,  John Muir worshiped the high Sierra, I fancy my Four-mile run creek.