behindtheax

a little winter whine

Christmas was lovely. However, I still can’t get use to how quiet they are even after this long. I was once so sure of the huge family gathering with everything it entails from the drama to the humor to the lows and highs. So, it usually kicks in around Christmas day for me, just as I am setting the table for the meal, how much I miss the commotion of a large family. For a second I become engulfed in homesickness so strong I wish the holiday over. But then once the meal is underway and the four of us are sitting around the table, talking and laughing and filling ourselves up with turkey and the trimmings, I feel blessed to have what I have. We use to go home for Christmas. We use to drive. Stay at Greg’s parents place. Running around trying desperately to visit everyone over the holidays. We usually never made the plaster rock highway before dark. That was always Greg’s one point about driving. As long as we get to the Plaster Rock before dark. We rarely did. He never minded driving through Montreal but he didn’t like the Plaster Rock. There are so many twists and turns to it. One year we came upon a deer, twisted and broken but alive. I said we have to stop and Greg said we can’t stop here on a turn and just as he said it a logging truck went by us, practically flying. It was a mercy to the deer but I shudder thinking if I got out of the car. What could I have done for it anyway? Kids were small then and thank God didn’t see any of it from the back seat. “What deer! What deer! I want to see the deer.”
No, I don’t think you do.

The plaster rock is a short cut through the province of New Brunswick and there is a town on one end of it and a town on the other end and for two hours nothing in between but trees and snow. One year we hit it during a snowstorm, found a vehicle in the ditch, gave the guy in it a lift into town. When driving out the other end of it, spotting the first house, sitting in a field, yellow light of small square windows shining on the night, I would feel truly home. That the river was only a short distance from here and family was just a little further down the road. It was always a wonderful feeling. I miss going home for the holidays but I find I need to be there in the summer and can only really justify one trip a year. Sometimes here, the winters feel a little like the Plaster Rock Highway, stretched in front of me – in between here and home.

I feel I need to make changes this year. I feel like I live but I don’t live well. I never take chances. I always feel like I am waiting for something to happen but I won’t make things happen for myself. . Sometimes I wonder if I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – I get small bursts of energy when I can accomplish a great amount but in between it seems like a lot of down time. I don’t always see things as they are. I would like to see things clearer. The other day, we were having supper at a friends place and my daughter came into the kitchen and was talking to my friend and for a second I think I saw my oldest daughter as she was seeing her and I felt this overwhelming pride in this daughter who is growing up with such a strong sense of self. I like the way she takes up space in a room. How she settles into it and makes it hers. She is a little too shy at times, especially in class, but she is well liked and has close friends that she has been with since Kindergarten. I keep reminding myself when I start feeling a little inept in my life that I am part of this wonderful family and this city is our home and we are living well in it. I want to let go of the east coast just a little, so that I can let myself live here, give myself permission to be home here. I am tired of feeling like a fish out of water, not because I am but because that was the way I decided I would feel about this city. 2006 – I will try harder.

posted by mary j. @ 12:13 PM