Common Ground

photo by Mary Vazquez

The wind was blowing. The snow was miniscule beads flying more up than down. It was cold, and gray and Mercury was in the middle of its retrograde. I am thinking of Montreal. 1970. I was twenty years old, just married, about as directionless as those beads of snow. I was blown up across the border when we left the country, but I was determined to ground myself. It seems to be my destiny, this search for home. For a base in the world. A place to land. I’m still searching.

Winter is the change agent in my life. I met my husband in February, married him the following February, learned of my pregnancy the next February. When I look back I see a pattern of changes, decisions, turning points, most of which took place mid winter. When the world is frozen solid, that’s when my life cracks open. The decision to let go of the dream house in the face of financial misfortune. The end of the marriage. The return to graduate school. I don’t hibernate. I hyperventilate, then go to ground and, like the tiny beads of white coursing by the window, the descent usually takes a random direction, no clear path to the ground, no sense of time and space other than the belief that the landing will be accompanied and perhaps cushioned by many other beads of white finding their way from sky to earth, from circumstance to wellbeing.

            This is my prayer for our country and our world this coming February—that we can all find common ground.