Bring It On, Phil!

And strangely, I don't mean spring.

Not that I wouldn't welcome spring, but can I just tell you how desperately I have been loving this winter?

Winter was magic when I was a child. I can still taste the awe and excitement of waking up and looking out of our big, picture windows to see the world sparkling, blanketed in new snow. The hush, the splendor of the smooth, crystalline surface was almost sacred.

I remember walking home from school, wearing pink and gray moon boots. Crossing the high school football field, I felt like an arctic explorer as I tromped a trail through virgin snow that came up to my knees. And of course no trip would be complete without a handful melting in my mouth as I fell backward with a poof into the white to make a snow angel.

Seeing my breath blow in steamy puffs through the icy air, I felt so alive. Examining the tiny snowflakes that fell on my window, I marveled at each intricate, unique design.

My mom would bundle me up in snow pants and coat and boots and gloves and scarves and hat. I would wander through my yard for hours. Winter made the places I knew into a brand new world, fresh for exploring. Then, I'd come in to the living room, put my wet clothes on the large metal heater vent to dry and sit in our cozy kitchen drinking hot cocoa.

Later years found me sledding -- at East Elementary with Camille, at the high school with Rachel, in our Stake President's back yard with Liesl. Oh, and thinking about Liesl reminds me of the old snowmobile we used to ride for hours around the fields at West Elementary.

Winter was a charmed time.

I don't remember exactly when I started hating winter. By the time I was in high school, I'd lost a bit of my love affair with winter. But I didn't hate it.

Winter meant singing in three different choirs all through the Christmas season. It meant lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Winter was snowball fights with Michael, holding hands and walking through the cold until midnight with Troy, driving with Kevin to meet his grandmother in a car that didn't have a heater. I had to huddle under a pile of quilts and he had to stop every couple of blocks to wipe the inside of the windshield so that he could see.

Even during those years, winter was magic.

I think it may have been my freshman year of college that did it. I didn't know it then, but an insidious monster was creeping into my life.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression will understand why I simply cannot put into words the intensity of the pain, the anger, the emptiness and cold that has crept through my mind and heart every winter for so many years.

The panic that came over me every year in October was palpable. The feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness that consumed me each November are excruciating to even think about.

Somehow, this year a miracle happened. After TEN YEARS of suffering through winter, of wanting to hide from everyone and everything, of loathing the cold and the ice and the gray of winter, this year I am free.

I have no explanation for it. Nor do I want to spoil the charm of it all by trying to deduce the reasons.

I am simply grateful -- overwhelmingly, completely enamored with this season, with everything about it. My heart is full of the wonder I felt as a six year old child.

Has falling snow always been this enchanting? Has it always been this white? Have I ever really seen two feet of snow so powdery that it feels like air when you shovel it? Or snow so heavy that it is like hefting shovels full of water?

Is this how it feels to greet winter without crushing, agonizing depression?

Can I have some more please? I feel like I'm making up for a decade worth of winters this year.

A few nights ago, I walked outside to see Mashuga walking lightly across the surface of the snow in our front yard. An enormous grin exploded across my face. I remember that! Do you? Do you remember when you were small and the surface of the snow was frozen so that you could walk on top and leave only the barest trace of footprints?

And snowmen. Do you remember the sheer joy of building snowmen? This year my children have made snowmen and snowdogs. Their cousins came over with long, crooked carrots for snowmen noses. They all worked together to build snowmen in our yard, then ran across the street to build two more ginormous snow people in our neighbor's yard. This was extra fun, for Iris's aunt came here from Mexico just a few months ago. This was her first winter, her first snowman. Isn't that exciting?



The vicarious joy I've gotten from my children this year would be enough, but I am just astounded by the joy I feel, the way I've walked in awe during this season. The white, the ice, the fluffy snow has warmed my heart and spirit in immeasurable ways.

So, Punxatawney Phil can shuffle out of his hole to see his shadow tomorrow. Or he can not. Whether the groundhog heralds a swiftly approaching spring or a continued winter, I will be glad for it. I will welcome it with open arms.

You see, my friends, I have been happy and able to enjoy winter for the first time in oh so many years. Life has taught me once again that I believe in miracles.

So Little Time...

So much to blog about.

I feel terribly behind right now. There's so much I'm dying to tell you!

It's been a busy week.

Here are the posts I owe you and will be getting up very soon:

• My haircut, including pictures and the whole detailed story. Aaargh! Will I never find a stylist that I trust who lives close to me????? And how old will I be before my mom stops making hair appointments for me? (Thanks Mom!)
• Drawing from my roll call post. I know who the lucky three winners are, but I'm not telling now because I have darling pictures of Mashuga making the picks. You can wait for that, right?
• All about my date with 6, no 8!, handsome men to see the Real Salt Lake vs. L.A. Galaxy game and how they acted like gorillas and ninjas on the train ride home. Yes, I have pictures.
• Why I go to bed with two men every night and generally wake up with three or four. Hint: one of them is short, mostly bald and on the chubby side.
• The joy of our school's fall festival -- tonight! Of course I'll take the camera.
  
• Also, it's been a while since I did a Soap Opera Sunday and I think I have just the story to start this weekend. It involves one of the only two grudges I've held for over a decade. (The other one is when Breannon pinched me on St. Patrick's Day at preschool and said I wasn't wearing green when, in fact, my rainbow striped shirt had several green stripes! I hated her for this until I was about fifteen and came to my senses. *grin*)

Have a marvelous weekend. Truly, I'll try to catch up. I feel like I've been too busy to blog. When I really think about it, though, I've mainly just been walking around in a haze this week and eating lots of potato chips. I'm praying that this is not an early sign of impending SAD.

How I Feel Today

Harry Potter notwithstanding (no, I haven't made it to the bookstore yet), I'm feeling sad today. I'll write more later, but for now, I'll just post a bit from one of my favorite poems that really captures what I'm feeling. It's from Birches by Robert Frost.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.

Bleh...

So, I've not had much original thought on here lately. That's mostly because the things that have been rolling through my mind lately have not passed my onboard critic as "fit for public consumption". It's been an interesting last couple of weeks. Good and bad mixed together.

First, can I just say how much I HATE, LOATHE, DETEST mental illness. Honestly. I'm tired of it. Tired of how it has affected me, has affected my family members.

Now that that's out of the way, I can (try to) be my usual, chatty self.

Among other things, soccer season is over. What a fun team we had this year. And Mashuga actually almost played by the end of the season. He spent more and more time on the field and less and less time tackling people while he was on the field. I have hope and must remember that my older two had their butterly-chasing-dandelion-picking seasons as well. Of course, with Mashuga, I'd be overjoyed if picking dandelions were the worst of what he did. He just does things BIGGER and LOUDER than everyone and found much fun in kicking the ball away from the other team as they were setting up for a corner kick, or tackling anyone who came near him, or laying down in the goal, or losing his britches during the game (well, that was involuntary, but very, VERY funny).

Kaitybean had her first track meet, ran her first race AND WON! Hooray! It was terribly cold, though, and we left before she completed all of her events.

Scud played in his first tee-ball game. It was fun to watch him. He has a good arm! Mashuga, Coco and I shivered through it while Kaitybean hung out in the car.

I took a trip to the ER last week for strange, severe chest and shoulder pain. They didn't find anything wrong and the Dr. suspected that it might be musculo-skeletal. So, I need to pay a visit to my brother the chiropractor. I'm thinking it might have something to do with carrying a little guy around in a sling for hours at a time.

The week before that we took a vacation to Salt Lake City and visited the zoo, Clark Planetarium, Discovery Gateway and other fun places. I turned 29 while we were up there.

So, it's been busy. I won't regale you with every detail. Let's just say I am overwhelmed. And sad. And feeling a bit time-poor. But I'm certain it will all look better soon. And until then, I'll just laugh at the post below. I suggest you do the same.