Ebb
Tide
“The
life in us is like the water in a river. It may rise this year higher
than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands...”
Henry
David Thoreau
The
small town in North Carolina where I grew up lies along a river. It's
not a navigable river, only about 30 yards across at its widest, but
deep enough to camouflage its swift current. One year while I was
there taking care of my mother, spring rains flooded the river above
the roadways, taking trees and property with it. People who had lived
fifty yards from its banks for decades were flooded out, their
basements full of river mud, tree limbs and ruined furniture. Everyone in the
town was in shock because no one could remember the river rising like
that, even after winters of heavy snowfall. As the waters receded,
new islands appeared in the river, the banks had been cut wider and
deeper, and a sandy loam covered the undergrowth on either side. Like
a woman who's had too much plastic surgery, it wasn't the same. And,
folks related differently to it. It was as though a stranger had
moved into town an no one was quite sure how to approach her.
From
the quote above, Thoreau continues his story by telling of a great
wooden table that had stood in a New England farm kitchen for sixty
years. Out of the blue, the sound of gnawing began to come from it.
After several weeks of grinding, a hole appeared and a small bug
emerged. No one knew how long the egg had lain dormant, nor what warmth
had caused it to hatch when it did.
In
these post-Christmas days, when all the hoopla dies down and the
family goes home, we may feel at low ebb. The build up was
energizing, we maintained the momentum through the weeks of shopping
and baking and entertaining, and now we're flat-out tired. The new
year lies before us like a long stretch of empty highway with nary a
headlight in sight. Don't worry. The river will rise again; energy
and enthusiasm will find ignition. We'll pick up steam as the year
unfolds. For now, let's take it easy and allow time for quiet
restoration. Like the bug in the table, we require a period of
dormancy in which to gather ourselves before gnawing our way to the
surface.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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