Can You Hear Me Now

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.

Roger Hornsby

A couple weeks ago, I wrote of learning how to ice skate after decades of unrequited love. It was a feel good story about overcoming hesitations and accomplishing a long sought goal. While it was mostly true, I left out something big. Something that not only kept me off the ice, but kept me trapped in a box for many years.

Here is the rest of the story.

Being fascinated by snow, ice, and cold is not the same as living in it. After spending my formative years in the hot and dry desert of central Arizona, Minnesota winters were a shock. It wasn’t a shock that happened all at once, though. The first time I shoveled out a driveway was actually an exciting experience. It was new, different, and thrilling. The same may have been true for the second and third times. However, after months of shoveling, below zero temperatures, treacherous driving on icy roads, gray skies, and the incredibly short days with very little sunlight, my fascination turned into a stomach full of knots that lasted from November to March or April.

I remember one December when I was driving from the Twin Cities to Red Wing. As the miles rolled by I thought to myself, “I could drive for hours in any direction and it would still look and feel exactly the same — dreary, cold, and snowy.” Winter had turned from a thing of postcard beauty to a jail cell.

I never felt that way in Arizona. Driving north from my home in Scottsdale, I would go from low desert, to high desert, to mountain pines in a little more than an hour. I would start out in shorts and a t-shirt and before too long be putting on long pants and a light jacket. The realization that here in Minnesota nothing changed in the same amount of time settled into my soul like a very heavy stone.

Here
in the chasm of winter’s deep freeze
I miss most the sound of cicadas
crying out their blistering songs

An orchestra of rusted gates
that will not stop swinging

Thankfully, I don’t carry that stone inside me anymore.  My story of change is long and involved, but at its essence is choice.  Until I was forced to make the choice of embracing winter, I was always fighting against my longing for the familiarity of Arizona.  I needed to decide for myself that this is where I wanted to live before I could free myself of the past. Until that happened, I was forever pining for something I knew I would never have. A better recipe for resentment was never concocted.

We learn the rope of life by untying its knots. Jean Toomer

Of course, choosing was only the start. I then needed to do something about it. That led me to the afore mentioned ice skating, snowshoeing, hot chocolate by the fire, and my full spectrum SAD light. They worked together to reinforce my decision and kept me from backsliding into those knots. I chose to be mindfully present and engaged despite what the thermometer read.

There have been other times in my life when I had to give myself permission to be at peace with something.  I can get so wrapped up in not wanting to believe I care for something that I keep myself from seeing it, whatever it is, for what it actually is.  I was like that with dancing, certain types of music, sports, church, and in some cases people.  By acting as if I do not care or do not want to care, I allow myself to pretend I am somehow better, or at a minimum different, from everybody else.  By wearing the armor of not caring, I protect myself from having to admit that I am wrong and I hate being wrong.

Let it Go

Denial is one of my coping mechanisms.  It allows me to run from reality however that reality presents itself.  I was like that with Minnesota.  There was always the excuse of Arizona to hide behind and until I allowed myself to see Minnesota as Minnesota and not a failed Arizona, I was unhappy living here.  Until I let the comparisons go I was held prisoner by Arizona’s shadow.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. Mark Twain

I am not foolish enough to believe that choosing is always easy. Change can be excruciatingly hard and I can’t simply snap my fingers and suddenly think and feel differently. Knowing that change is possible is only the first step. After that it takes the second, third, and fourth steps to turn a wish into a new way of living.

I take these steps daily with my marriage, friendships, family, volunteer work, etc. I give myself permission to welcome a life beyond my petty fears and stubborn habits. I work on myself rather than trying to change the world and people around me. The first is enlightening. The latter is folly. They have their journeys and I have mine.

As always, I have a lot of work ahead of me.  There is so much unfinished business and too many denied experiences.  There will always be choices to make and permissions to grant.  I am learning to let go of notions and expectations I have held onto for far too long. It’s okay to change my mind about the things that no longer serve me as they once did.

There will be more knots, but there will also be unraveling. That’s the hope that keeps moving me to the next right thing. That’s the light that drives back the shadows.

Happy Anniversary to Me

This article is something of a milestone for me. Not only is it the last thing I will post in 2025 (I post on Mondays and this is the last Monday of the year), it is also my 100th post. If you have been following along from the beginning, this blog was created as part of my retirement plan. I knew that I did not want to continue posting technical stuff in Tao, Zen, and Tomorrow, but I wasn’t ready to stop writing altogether. Even more than that, I wanted an outlet that allowed me to go deeper into my life than was possible when I wrote about SIP headers and Large Language Models.

Over the past many months, I’ve shared my challenges, epiphanies, volunteer work, and spiritual journey. I have also expressed anger about the current state of our country and the belief that we will turn the authoritarian ship around. Writing is a big part of my sanity and I hope that it brings something of worth to my readers.

I don’t know where 2026 will take me, but that’s okay. I expect that there will be great moments and more than enough difficult times. That was certainly true of this year. Whether is was the passing of my mother or the birth of my fourth grandchild, I have experienced real and substantial life. Life that required my full attention. May the coming year challenge all of us in ways that move the needle ever forward.

Thank you for reading.

Cara Cara

The whole is cleaved
ripped and torn apart
like Moses’ rent in the sea
we are left with this side and that
one driving forward as the other falls back

One foot in the future
the other in a collapsing past