Winter Break
We got the kids back to school this morning, John trudging through the slush to wait for the bus, thoughtful and wary of the world, as always, through Asperger eyes, and Beth via American Airlines. Some things change, some remain the same. Winter break is over.
Four weeks and a funeral, reunion, death and Christmas, all rolled into winter. Beth claims she never transitioned from Pacific Standard to Texas Time, but somehow on her flight home she obviously crossed the International Date Line. She went to bed at 4 a.m. and straggled out in mid-afternoon, into the shower and then off with her friends. She was here and not here, then, real enough to touch (when we got a chance) but still sort of gone. Which is the way it is, of course.
The weather was the story in Western Washington this week, bitter cold (is there a sweet kind?) and then the wait for The Perfect Storm. Arctic air swept down from Canada, then warm, wet stuff from the Pacific came to the party and we got ready.
The snow crept north on I-5 late Monday night at or near the legal limit, so it was after 6 on Tuesday morning when the first flakes started at our house. I went back to bed about 7, feeling tired and cold, and two hours later I had the flu. Shaking chills, vomiting, fever. The biggest snowfall since 1996 and I was like the kid who got the measles on the day of the field trip. I was conscious enough only to know I couldn't move and that my wife had it, too.
John played nurse, offering us Sprite and soup and dragging a chair into our bedroom to keep an eye on us, making sure we didn't die on him, and meanwhile it snowed and we missed it. Occasionally I'd wake up and change the channel, so we bounced from local coverage to a couple of episodes of "Cheers" to a documentary on Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. Seattle was a playground, it seemed, a giant block party, a snow day for the city, but Julie and I were noncombatants. I'd drift off into dreams of sledding down Queen Anne Hill with Abe Lincoln, trying to convince him to dump McClellan, as Norm and Cliff charged by on a snowboard. Bart Simpson was around, too. It was a fuzzy day.
By the next morning I was back on my feet. It sounded like traffic was horrible, but I wasn't going anywhere anyway. Julie still was dragging and tried hard to persuade us that she had a giant pelvic tumor or maybe sickle cell anemia, but I'm pretty sure it was just the flu.
I ran the Shop-Vac over the garage floor to head off the melting ice. The mail came and our cable was out most of the day, and then the packing was done and goodbyes said and Beth took off this morning, so I guess we're back to normal.
I could do without a month like this again, all things considered. You can't separate the good from the bad, though, and there was good. Snow on Christmas night. Beth and her mom singing together at church, like they did when Beth was 5 and soldiered solo through the first verse of "Away In The Manger." The Seattle Times asked me to write a New Year's essay on hope, and I struggled with that but I found it, hope, and it wasn't too bad.
I got my daughter back for a bit and buried my father, and now hope is what I have and a little normalcy is what I want. Normalcy and a little extra money, maybe. A few more pounds off. Some good episodes of "West Wing." My book out in the early spring. Not much. Mostly normalcy.
Which is what I have today. A quiet house. The temperature in the low 40s. "A Mighty Wind" on DVD, waiting to be watched. The cable is back. The primaries and playoffs are coming up. My kids are doing okay, the roof hasn't fallen in yet, and the snow has turned to rain, which we should be used to by now.
11:06:21 AM 
|
|
