This is my symphony

Last month we had one of those Midwest snow storms that closes schools, interrupts travel, and keeps many of us shoveling every few hours to keep up with the drifts. It is only my second winter living alone, and let’s just say I’ve never been more happy to have the companionship of a little fur baby than I was in January. My go-tos for staying connected to others–the YMCA, grand kids, and dinner with friends–were impossible to access. For a day or two I rode the wave of excitement that these storms often stir up. I baked. I decluttered. I shoveled with enthusiasm. I read.

And then I was over it. So over it. I spent more time than was healthy surfing the internet. Even though I had declared a spending freeze for January, Amazon became my best friend. I watched hours–and hours–of Ken Burns on PBS. I even searched for airline tickets to someplace warm in February before sky-high ticket prices dissuaded me. (I did, however, reserve an Air B&B in Florida next February!)

When city plows had finally made at least one pass on major thoroughfares, I braved icy snow-covered roads for swim class at the Y. As I rounded a corner onto an unplowed side street, I found myself leaning in the direction I turned–much like I’d do if I was riding a bicycle. And later, as I sat at a stoplight, I saw other drivers doing the same. We were all leaning into the turn.

I’ve learned a lot about adversity in the past several years. I lived with a loved one’s addiction and the financial fallout of that addiction; I honed my Spidey senses to recognize when a mental health crisis was imminent. I cared for my mother in the months before she died. And although it was painful, although I wouldn’t willingly choose the difficult situations, I learned through years of therapy and “doing the work”, as they say, that I alone was responsible for my happiness. I accepted that there were things I couldn’t change, and I began to develop the courage to change what I could. Fighting against my circumstances did nothing but create distress. Only by leaning into them would I be at ease.

And while a winter storm is a far cry from death and divorce, I realized that weathering this storm would be much easier if I didn’t resist the isolation. Or, for that matter, the cold and the shoveling and the temptation to worry about the massive icicles that hung from my roof.

I needed to lean into the turn life had (however briefly) taken. Despite being shut in, when was I happiest? In those first two days when I didn’t fight it. When I putzed around the house. Enjoyed extra time to read. Snuggled the fur baby who has so brightened my life.

And sure enough, two weeks later, the snow has melted. I’ve shed my heaviest winter coat for a lighter one. The sun decided to reappear. And robins and bluebirds have returned to my yard. My discontent changed not. one. thing.

Just as the snow was melting, I finished Amor Towles’s novel The Lincoln Highway and talk about leaning into the turn? Emmett Watson and his younger brother Billy are poster boys for taking things as they come. Emmett, newly released from a work farm, arrives home after serving his time to find his the farm sold and his eight-year-old brother packed and ready to set out towards a new and better future. (No worries about Emmett’s character. He is at the reformatory because after a fist fight to defend his father’s name, Emmett’s antagonist dies. He might have a temper, but there’s not a mean bone in Emmett’s body.) Emmett plans to settle in Texas and start a construction business. Billy, however, has other plans. After their father dies, Billy finds postcards from the mother who left them years earlier and uses them to map out the route she took after leaving–and figure out her whereabouts. But their best laid plans are upended when Emmett finds two of his work farm buddies, Duchess and Woolly, gone AWOL and hiding in his barn. And so begins a wild ride across the country from Nebraska to New York–sometimes by train, sometimes by automobile–where the boys experience set backs and betrayal, as well as miracles and remarkable serendipity. Like many odysseys the escapades they take part in are so far-fetched it strains credulity. But this is one tall tale that works.

So if you find yourself in a funk when life twists and turns, don’t fight it. Just lean into the turn.

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(After writing this post, I realized how many novels I’ve read that center around road trips. Try The Widows Adventures, for one. And The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet for another.)