Colder Weather

on late August smoke & flinging off New England sensibilities

Before today’s essay, I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who subscribe.

When I sit down to write each of these essays & letters, I know I can do so with honesty and vulnerability because you have shown up with such compassion and warmth every. single. time. You are the reason why I write. You make being in community so beautiful.

To those who support The Second Cup with a paid subscription, you make it possible to devote the time it takes to write these letters, and you make me feel so cared for I can hardly stand it. Thank you for showing up in this way. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

I also want to give a shout-out to my founding subscribers—the ones who go absolutely above & beyond to support The Second Cup at the highest financial level. You have been in my corner since the start of this thing, and I am just blown away by your generosity. At the risk of embarrassing you, I’m gonna shout you out by name:

• Michael Krohn

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Whether you are supporting this little piece of the Internet with your encouragement, your kind words, your prayers, your finances, or otherwise, just know you are each rocking my world. Thank you.

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Maybe it’s ingrained in me—in all of us—to remember the cold. To tuck Ziplocs of wild blueberries in the back of the freezer, even as fresh fruits and veggies overtake every inch of fridge space. To drag the tote marked “Fall Stuff” down from the attic, even as the kids’ bathing suits are still hanging to dry on the railing outside. To sip pots of green tea and remember the InstaPot, even as the thermometer climbs steadily toward sweltering.

We are a people braced for the cold.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I smelled smoke in the air this morning. I marked the occasion in my journal:

August 26, 6:15 A.M: “Someone in the neighborhood just felt a chill in their home and rose to push the old ashes of late spring around in their wood stove. Their fingers remembered the motions—under their own agency, they opened the damper, arranged the kindling, tossed a flaming bit of yesterday’s Post in, waited for the crackle before stocking the fire with sturdier fuel. The kind that will offer a slow burn, a steady warmth: the kind we don’t really need yet, but will. Maybe they are rehearsing, because something in their bones whispers, Prepare.”

Truth be told, something in my bones urges me to prepare, too. Even now, as the crickets rub themselves raw¹ and the sun gains strength for another day, I sense an elemental shift in the seasons, the times, the nature of things. In myself.

Maybe it’s ingrained in me—in all of us—to remember the cold. To tuck Ziplocs of wild blueberries in the back of the freezer, even as fresh fruits and veggies overtake every inch of fridge space. To drag the tote marked “Fall Stuff” down from the attic, even as the kids’ bathing suits are still hanging to dry on the railing outside. To sip pots of green tea and remember the InstaPot, even as the thermometer climbs steadily toward sweltering.²

We are a people braced for the cold.

This surely serves some fundamental purpose for survival; I can almost hear our ancestors crying out from our inner fabric, warning us to reap and store and knit and bolster before winter sneaks its dark blanket over our heads and smothers us.

Yes. Perhaps this is why New Englanders are known for our tough exteriors: we are constantly braced for the cold.

I think about this now, and worry whether this annual anticipation of dark-cold-difficult days might have also seeped into my spirit, like forgotten fruit that’s bled through its packaging. Because when I think of my initial response to joy—it’s hesitation. I can hardly allow myself to engage in such willful irresponsibility.

Good golly, I’ll think, what if I reach out to grab happiness just as a storm blows in? I’ll be standing in the middle of a Nor’easter, naked and afraid!

Or, What if I allow myself to run towards delight and I am struck down mid-stride, left alone for the night beasts to gather around my defenseless body?

No, no. It’s safer to live prepared for the worst: to hole up, to buckle down, to harden over. I’ve seen cold weather; I’d rather not have it take me by surprise.

But this year, I’m exploring the idea that—while staying open to joy is not necessarily a safe pursuit (storms are known to blow in at any time)—it’s something I want to practice more. Because as I trace my finger backwards over the timeline of my years, I find specific seasons that are especially small and hard, raised like little dots of Braille that read, “She closed her doors against the cold.”

And while seasons such as these are sometimes necessary for survival, they are only good as long as we remember—once the storm has passed—to open our doors again, to let the light and the flowers and our neighbors pass through to pull off our heavy garments, to prevent us from staying in the dark-cold-difficult long after the ice has melted.

I have sometimes forgotten.

I have often been scared.

So now, even as early-morning smoke finds its way into my lungs and my teapot screams from the stove, I find myself almost brave enough to grab a heavy rock and stop my door with it, inviting the open air and whatever it will bring into my day. It is exhilarating; it is terrifying. A storm could be just around the corner, yes—but so could joy. I will leave my little bunker and my heavy coats too. For today, and at this moment, the sun is shining. So I will fling off all my New England sensibilities and rush outdoors, even though I haven’t a clue what’s to come next.

1. Over the weekend, my sister Rachel Fowler said something to this effect. I’ve used it here because I thought it quite clever, but they’re her words and she deserves the credit for them!

2. This line of thought was inspired by Maria Giesbrecht and her poem, “A Woman’s Harvest.” It’s a good one. You can read it here.