Thursday, December 1, 2011

Winter Fruit




December first. I wake to snow. I crave hot drink and solitude by a window where I can see the falling white and listen to my soul. Like a Christmas miracle, I am granted exactly that. I sit inside a warm, bright place and watch the barren earth drape itself in purity. Ridiculous, I think of Queen Elizabeth. Barren. White and bare.

I have pregnancy on the brain.

A misplaced desire, I tell my husband. Tell myself. Like the timing of everything in my life, the arrival of this strange want confounds me. I don't think I actually crave a baby. I think I crave the things it represents: joyful anticipation. A cherished arrival. A soft and holy hush. The earth appears unfruitful, but in this time it is waiting. In the cold, life is being knit together underneath. Too deep to see, too subtle yet to feel. Like an artist not deep in the work, but deep in the waiting. Gathering inspiration. Anticipating joy.

Everything appears dormant. One day it finally blooms.

All creation works like this.

What I crave is not a baby, but fruition. A fruit of my efforts, and peace. A soft and settled place. Not the frightful winds of autumn, not the rushed daze of spring. Like a child given a paper bird on a string, I twirl these two things between cold fingers. On one side, waiting. On the other side, harvest. I wait and know together, they can fly.

The miracle is, I feel it all. I can hold all this, and it is all right.

It is good.

A confused desire, I tell my husband, because my spirit likens my creative work to fertility. A book, like a baby, waits to be born. On the first of December, my creativity feels barren.

But all is not as it appears.

What I know is there is value in both these things: the quiet and the coming. One the comfort, the other joy.

Here is the promise in the depths of the dirt, beneath the earth frozen, beneath the solid snow: in the blackest, twisted forest, still things grow.

The barren world slow turns to blooming.

Out of darkness, light.


6 comments:

  1. I say get some sea monkeys instead.
    -Matthew

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  2. That is beautiful. Poetry. And I know what you mean.
    Dad

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  3. This is absolutely beautiful. I have never wanted a baby, but I can relate to wanting something to come to fruition, wanting something to anticipate. I was humbled again with your writing. Beautifully said.

    And I had to snicker at Matthew's comment. :-)

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  4. Matthew, definitely the smarter option.

    Thanks, M. My baby cravings have passed entirely. (phew).

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  5. Thanks, Pop. Why shouldn't I call you Pop?

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  6. This was a lovely post! I myself have had a low-grade Baby Fever for oh, about 4 years now. Most of the time I am rational enough to realize that more than anything, I like the idea of having another baby than the reality of having another baby. The idea is, as you so eloquently said, full of hope and anticipation. I want all of that. I miss all of that. And just knowing that I won't have all of that again makes me a little sad.

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