sNOW

I cannot recall ever having cabin fever. Just the opposite: The weather forecast calls for snow and I am instantly infected with a serious case of hyper anticipation. Joy fueled by the prospect of blizzards and snow thunder and 10 foot high drifts and impassable roads and states of emergency. Bring me snow storms. Bring me blizzards. I want to be trapped in the cozy, calm goodness of home. No plans. No appointments. No knocks at the door. Nothing.

Perhaps, I do have some serious issue with Stockholm Syndrome and continue to love anything that captures me. Perhaps I have avoidance and procrastination issues. Perhaps I am a homebody. All these disorders might very well be true: but I know that my deepest struggle is with being fully present.

Ask me what I am thinking-right now--well I thinking that I love Skittles, even though the sugar is definitely rotting my teeth. I thinking that I have to call Lily's teacher tomorrow. And I still have to finish my website. And I have a grant to write for a band in Ohio. And what would I write in my essay to apply to seminary. And the dog needs her nails trimmed. And, and, and, and, and, and, and. . . .I, me, the truest of me is absent. I am not present. I am either in the future or the past. The NOW is elusive.

Being snowed-in is delicious, like when you bite into a fresh apple, right off the tree. For just a split second, you can savor the sweet, crisp flavor. You are totally and completely tasting the apple, nothing else. You are in the NOW and the NOW is the apple.

When snow is announced, I sense a reprieve from all those things that keep me from the NOW. I can't leave. No one can leave. It is like time stops. And I have is NOW. I can just be still. Meditation in the cozy goodness of home. Shoveling, planning, shopping and thinking can wait. I can be my truest and my best, because there is nothing to interrupt the NOW. There is no where to go.

The NOW is always there, sometimes I just need mother nature, a weather man and a couple feet of snow.