By Robert McDowell
Approaching the end of the year and decade, I took a walk through the winter wonderland of Talent, Oregon yesterday. It was eighteen degrees. All the trees, bushes, and buildings glistened in their sheer white gowns. All along my route I felt as if I were walking through a White Christmas movie set from the silver age except that the fog was thicker and the sidewalks and roads slicker. It was icy, dangerously so, but I’m schooled in walking in snow, on ice, so I shortened my stride, watched where I was stepping, and placed my feet down carefully.
Oh so carefully, but not quite enough. I’d walked a mile into the village and was passing the coffee shop when whoosh! I was down on my left side. It’s always embarrassing for a self-proclaimed athlete to fall on his butt unexpectedly, but over fifty something else accompanies the shame—fear. Funny, but as I went down an image of my stealing second in a long-ago baseball game flashed through my mind. I was back up in a second, grateful that I could do that, that nothing seemed to be broken or terribly damaged, and I continued on my way.
Only later in the day did I note the increasing soreness of back, neck, shoulder, and hip, the swelling of my knee. Then it seemed appropriate to contemplate the irony of making a fool of myself on the shared birthday of David Sedaris and Henry Miller, writers I’ve loved for vastly different reasons at different times in my life.
Perhaps these spirit guides led me to other thoughts, a review of the decade and the year about to fly away. I did that, thinking how my fall and recovery-with-consequences-and-conditions was an appropriate symbol for the turning calendar. Yes, I am a savvy ice walker and slick enough in snow, but in an instant I was changed from a confident walker to a flat-on-my-back, what happened baby. In charge, I had to face facts: I wasn’t in charge at all. I could do my very best in the moment, and that was about the extent of my omnipotence. Is there any moment in our lives when this is not so?
I wish my knee felt better as I write this, that my neck and shoulder and back twitched like happy colts, but then again, I’m happy to feel anything and be able to consider it with humility and compassion. So, as 2009 ends, a year of transformation, separation, disappointment, death, betrayal, disaster, denial, and immense joy, I think of all of the thousands of acts of generosity and good will that just occurred around the globe as I typed this sentence. I think of the privilege of writing to each of you, and I wish you happiness, health, and awareness in the new year, the dawning decade. “God does not leave us comfortless,” the poet Jane Kenyon reminded us, “so let evening come.”
