Good Morning Westsiders.
The rain is falling. Again. Another go slow and have that second (third) cup of coffee kind of morning. The dogs are napping and the world seems to be moving slowly as raindrops dance across my windows. We have had plenty of these mornings this winter. The irony is that I haven’t made use of this advantageous wet weather to write. Our Southern California winter has been this just-missed-the-deadline millennial poet’s ideal climate and I’ve been neglecting my passion for more practical tasks like “laundry” and “grocery shopping” – actually, scratch that last one. I have my groceries delivered these days, which is everything that is right and also wrong with living on the Westside. Everything can be delivered. Including wine, which I discovered last night.
The thing is, I’ve started writing so many times only to have my season appropriate stories, time out. That’s the problem with the holidays. When we should slow down it seems like our most tonic tasks are pushed aside and we red-line our internal RPMs to make it through Christmas parties, shopping, appointments, wrapping paper and ribbon, airport security lines and eggnog.
Winter is the season when nature sleeps. It is resting. It is quiet. Perhaps we should take a page from Mother Nature’s book as well and use this season to go slow and tend to ourselves.
I was having major Westside guilt for neglecting this site for the last few months. Why? In order to keep my head above water? Because I didn’t have time? Because it has to be perfect before I published? It’s like our morning devotionals (or meditations, or mantras, or insert your individual religious practice here). When we prioritize these rituals, we gradually see our lives fall in step and take on a more manageable cadence.
So I’m writing to say that I’m still here. And perhaps finally in a season of rest and recovery. But, even during this time of year where hibernation is a state of mind, I’m reminded through whispers of wind across the lake or the silence of a snowfall that there is still a spark at the core, during this frozen time, waiting to ignite when the time comes to reawaken.
xx,
WM