The Living

My Winter Break Iceberg is Melting

My friend and I teared up watching the last episode of Gilmore Girls, where the community come together to give Rory a going-away party. The town organized it themselves, with secret meetings, because they must squeeze in a party before their daughter drives away. As we watched the camera span over the faces of the whole community staring and smiling up at Rory as she tried to thank them for the party without crying we almost lost it ourselves. 

There have been many moments like that this break, where I've been a part of the everyday - the quirky, spontaneous, mundane and lovable everyday.  Marie Howe writes about it in her collection of poems, What the Living Do - that everyday, living, thing that we do.  This is written in light of the deaths she has known, in particular for her brother John, who died at age 28.

What the Living Do

Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.

It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. 

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep,

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living. I remember you. 

Here at home there are unfinished house projects, trips to the grocery store, bringing in of the firewood - and the winter wind literally just pushed the door wide open a few minutes ago. This break I've done nothing more thrilling or exciting that to experience the everyday - without epic journeys or transforming travels.  Annie Dillard talks about the everyday in The Writing Life:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, or that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterwards as a blurred and powerful pattern. 

The most appealing daily schedule I know is that of a turn-of-the-century Danish aristocrat. He got up at four and set out on foot to hunt black grouse, wood grouse, woodcock and snipe. At eleven, he met his friends, who had also been out hunting all morning. They converged at "one of these babbling brooks" he wrote. He outlined the rest of his schedule. "Take a quick dip, relax with a schnapps and a sandwich, stretch out, have a smoke, take a nap or just rest, sit around and chat until three. Then I hunt some more until sundown, bathe again, put on white tie and tails to keep up appearances, eat a huge dinner, smoke a cigar and sleep like a log until the sun comes up again to redden the eastern sky. This is living... Could it be more perfect?

My winter break was perhaps a combination of these two descriptions.  Instead of hunting, replace it with watching House of Cards and instead of wearing white tails, replace that with staying in pajamas as long as possible.  There seems to be an important balance between enjoyment and work, schedule and free time - enjoying the everyday but also getting away from it.  I'm glad to have gotten away from my everyday for almost a solid month and now may just be ready to do some work again...