Winter Grays

December 11, 2022

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Sunrise 11/26/22

The Guest House
by Jalaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks (The Essential Rumi)

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

When life gives you grays, maybe choose black and white? (The sun is rising back there somewhere, 12/9/2022)

The winter grays have arrived, not atypical in Kansas City this time of year. Low clouds and misty mornings but still above freezing. Very few photographs but the conditions do make for quiet morning walks. How the gray feels can vary from day to day or moment to moment. One day this week I was walking and it felt like peace was descending in those clouds and wrapping me in a warm hug. The next day I wanted to scream, “enough! I need some sunshine!”

Some breaks in the clouds on 12/2/22! It’s amazing how different bright blue and blue-gray feel.

Feelings are such a curious thing. I tend to ascribe them to outer conditions and yet I find I can react to the same outer conditions differently on a different day for no obvious reason at all. I’m trying to view the challenging days as good opportunities to practice peace - peace with what is and peace with myself.

When I am struggling to find the ground of gratitude I often try to convince myself I *should* feel grateful. After our summer drought when the sky was clear every morning, I *should* be grateful for the moisture and clouds. After all, wasn’t I praying for clouds just a few weeks ago? I am grateful - but I don’t FEEL grateful. However much I try this approach - and I am relentless! - I can say with confidence it (almost) never works! I can’t talk myself out of my feelings most of the time.

This dark-morph red-tail returns to our lake every year (since at least 2015!). She can’t be talked into staying for a picture either, she takes off even when I’m all the way across the cove.

The wisdom teachers and modern psychology all seem to agree with the Rumi poem above, that the first step has to be acknowledging what is no matter how much I don’t want it to be there. I’ve come to refer to the blob of gray that sometimes arises inside of me as Bobb - Bobb the blob. (No offense meant to anyone named Bob!) Bobb can be made of many feelings - fear, dread, sadness, grief, irritation, and probably many more.

I definitely haven’t reached the state of “meeting them at the door laughing and inviting them in”. More like slamming the door, grumping about a bit and then grudgingly opening it and glaring at Bobb, accepting he might come in if he must and hoping he will at least take off his shoes. Sometimes I ask Bobb to go for a walk. I picture Bobb as a big dragon walking next to me and holding my hand. Bobb is big but somehow my dragon looks more like “Puff the Magic Dragon” than a fearsome creature.

This is probably how I look glaring at Bobb (downy woodpecker)

When I stop trying to talk myself out of my feelings and acknowledge they are here a tiny bit of peace starts to creep in. My shoulders drop and my body opens to the world - just a little. Like a turtle, I consider moving my head, arms and legs out of my shell. Slowly. Retracting a few times then considering it again. Like turtles do.

Maybe someday I will learn to surf the waterfalls of these emotions like this snapping turtle did in 2017:

It seems I’ve been trying to make peace in my world for a long time. When I was eight years old I had a doll that said a few randomized phrases when you pulled a string¹. She was brightly colored and spoke in a snarky tone, saying things like “You’re cute but I’m cuter” and “I want a hamburger”. The one I most remember is, “I’m gonna be President”. I remember it not because I thought I would be President one day, but because every time she said it, something inside me said, “no, I have something more important to do, I need to bring world peace!” Even at eight years old, peace felt important in my life.

One thing that makes me smile and feel at peace with the world is the annual return to Midway atoll of Wisdom, the amazing 71-year-old Laysan albatross. You can read this year’s story here.

And speaking of interesting things from my childhood - and really because I’ve been looking for an opportunity to include this in a story even though it’s probably only interesting to me - here’s a story I wrote when I was in 2nd grade (7 yrs old):

As an adult, guess who introduced me to birds? Mary of course! Mary Nemecek, my amazing friend since the first day of college. It’s almost like young me was writing an (indecipherable) map I’m only starting to understand.

Here’s to all the ways we find peace because the one thing I’m sure of is we need more peace in the world.

1. Because you can google anything these days, I searched and found the doll. It was a “Talk-a- littles Toofums Pull String Doll” made by Mattel in 1970.