Blog

 

As March arrives, the Lion appears to be having its way here in northern Michigan.

 

Many people who know my husband and I have a place in Vieques (Puerto Rico) assume we spend the wintry months there. But they are wrong. We used to go to the Caribbean over the winter a lot more frequently when we lived in Atlanta. For one thing, it was a lot easier to get to when we lived there. Truth be told, however, we moved to Michigan so we could have more of winter, not less. We actually choose not to go to Vieques during “the season.”

 

One neighbors Julie and Paul R., came back home last week for a few days of respite from their Florida winter getaway. Julie told me that living in Florida, she doesn’t have the kind of “down time” that a northern winter naturally provides, and she misses that.

 

I understand. While our house in Frankfort was under renovation, I spent more of the cold months in the tropics. Skipping winter, I felt the same way. Not only can having fun in the sun be a sort of pressure, for this descendant of northern Europeans at least, it feels like I’m cheating myself of some valuable gift winter may offer.

 

In the long, cold, and gray Michigan winter (if I can successfully avoid the omnipresent electronic distractions such as Facebook), there aren’t many people knocking on the door.  My awareness is drawn inward. It’s not always comfortable (hence the compulsion to look at Facebook one more time), but I do cherish the time for reflection, for mulling and musing, for puzzling out—yet again!—who I am and what really matters and how I can live meaningfully and purposefully.

 

Inevitably these questions elicit a host of mercurial responses from my many inner selves. Part of what winter offers is the opportunity to watch the candidates for my attention campaign for their version of reality. (Much more interesting than Presidential Debates!) One day, an Ambitious self is off to New York City to seek fame and fortune; the next, a Less Ambitious self asserts her preference to Occupy Frankfort, on the Corner of 4^th Street and Forest Avenue. Meanwhile, another self considers if she should write a Memoir, speak out on an Important Subject or What to Paint Next.

 

The inner work that’s possible in wintertime is captured well in this teaching story by the Sufi poet Rumi in this translation by Coleman Barks:

 

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

In wintertime new paintings stack up against the walls of my studio. I sometimes shudder at the way they don’t seem to follow any particular style. I look (on Facebook) at the work of my fellow artists and marvel at the consistency that some of them achieve. I seem to be all over the place.

 

But perhaps this is a function of being a Guest House as well as a painter. As innkeeper, I don’t evict someone who doesn’t paint the way I think they should! If I’m grateful for whoever comes, I won’t be packing up and heading south when the unwanted guest arrives. Instead I’ll let each one pick up the paint brush and make some marks. Instead, I’ll be interested to see what they have to show and tell. In other words, I’ll embrace and endure Winter and what it brings. (And try not to spend too much time on Facebook.)

 

Don’t get me wrong – I look forward as much as anyone to the first buds of Spring, to the glorious, endless days of Summer. I’ll paint the first grocery store flowers in anticipation of both. But at this stage of my life, I don’t want to skip any of the seasons. And I would like to know more about all of those guests – wanted or unwanted, they’ve been with me for a lifetime or more. To them I say, Have your way with me now and again and again. And, for the time being, let it snow. The Lamb will come in its own good time.

Read More