Periscope Down

This likely won’t be the place to get any sort of Angle update anytime soon, just as it hasn’t been for the past many months. My view is submerged. My season is hibernation. My mind is single-tracked.  And my cub is the reason.

Cubs.

Kids. Plural. Yes, I’m still jangling on that.

Soon, the short pause of newness will wear off. Soon, I’ll be as exasperated and overworked as all the Mom’s. Soon, I’ll have forgotten what life was like before.

The baby often goes back to sleep for a few hours after we get the kindergartner out the door. On this late arrival day (school starts at 10AM instead of 8), she’s out playing in the fresh snow. He’s curled up on my side of the bed sleeping nearly as well as if I were there. And the man is long gone, making the first tracks in six new inches of powder on the Canadian roads. If anything, the changing weather keeps the 75-minute commute far from monotonous.

I haven’t been out ice-fishing, but I hear it’s been good. I haven’t been out bar-hopping, but I hear not much has changed. We caught a dinner special at Jerry’s last week and it was a treat, though decidedly not dairy-free, as I’ve been having to eat lately. The wee babe has constant phlegm in the back of his throat, and I’ve self-diagnosed a dairy allergy. He sometimes chokes on it and struggles for air when breastfeeding. It’s terrifying watching him gasp and not find his breath. I jerk him upright, pound on his back and throw one arm up in the air – all instinctual motherly reactions. Even he gets scared and clings to me as he recovers. I’m fine without cheese if it means he breathes better.

I bowed out of working on the Snow Rally this year, but it’s well-covered and I’m not missed. Sunset Lodge is hosting the March 2^nd event. It’s always a good time, supports a good cause, and for the locals, seems to mark the end of the busy winter season up here … or close to it.

Winter is long for some and short for others. With my periscope down, I’ve barely noticed the bitter cold. I read more about it on social media than I actually experienced it, embarrassing as that is to admit. Through the glass, we watched the size of the snowflakes and the circumference of the puffed-up chickadees. The pines were one day frosted and the next, whipped clean by the winds. Our thermometer swung more than a hundred degrees outside to in, and we stayed warm, watching it all from our submerged vantage.

“You have only one job,” my partner keeps reminding me. “Well…two,” he amended once. Heal and take care of the little guy. But it’s been nearly two months since major surgery. Most everything is back to normal, and the new normal with a growing infant is getting easier every day.

Still, I’ve missed the beauty of winter. I’ve missed the hubbub of The Angle. And some times, at the end of the day, it feels like all I’m doing is waiting for the baby to grow instead of truly being present in his perfection. How do I stop looking forward and simply see what’s right here now?

How indeed?

The coming warmer weather will mean slow walks and new sights for a new soul, renewing mine by proxy. How I love being the tour guide, seeing it all again for the first time, making discovery after discovery!

There’s joy in all the views when I truly look.

(Column 112 – published in the February 5th Warroad Pioneer)