Snow Day

(http://thesuettas.blogspot.com/2010/11/snowy-days.html)

 

 

 

The snow started falling today a little before noon, Hanover time.  Tiny flakes that might have been raindrops a couple of days ago drifted down, pirouetting about in the swirling winds, before finally coming to rest atop one another in soft powdery drifts; like confectioners sugar dusting a cake.  I stood at the kitchen window at work this afternoon, transfixed by the specks of light that reflected off the snowflakes.  Except that I was standing still, it seemed my world was a snow globe that some child had shaken, in order to watch the iridescent glitter fall to the bottom again.

 

I have ambivalent feelings toward snow.  Some kinds I like very much, especially the soft powdery kind; dancing splinters of light.  And the kind with clusters of flakes, diving to earth, colliding with each other on the way down to either break into smaller clumps or become enjoined, forming mega-clusters.  That kind makes me wonder if that's how the planets formed, clumps of matter bumping and grinding and joining and breaking apart in their earliest stages of life.

 

Just like most other folks, I hate having to shovel snow, clearing it off my car, getting it in my shoes or down my neck; all the dirty piles of it at the curbs, overflowing the sidewalks; the tamped down snow that forms fall-on-your-butt zones.  Then there is the slush on the streets that the town refuses to scrape away or salt, making a trip around the block a life-or-death/fender-bender adventure best left to tanks, or Humvees with ship-anchor chains on the tires.

 

I stopped for a few groceries on my way home which took a little longer than usual because of aforementioned slushy streets.  By the time I pulled into the carport, dusk was well on its way to becoming nightfall.  The security light at the back door shone across virgin snow cover on the lawn and the sidewalk leading to the house.  The rainbow of light splinters caused by the light hitting the minute ice crystals in the snow took my breath away; it was so beautiful.  Rather than mar the pristine surface of the sidewalk, I slogged across the blanketed lawn to the back door.  Snow filled my shoes and clung to the bottom half of my pants legs, but I didn't care. 

 

I wanted that perfectly flat strip of snow undisturbed so that later tonight, when all the neighbors' lights are out and the street lights at the front of my house have cycled off, I'll go back out with my high-powered LED flashlight and watch the light and fire and diamond-dust show the powder will put on for me.  Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.

 

It's a crow thing. 

Truth

"We chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away."
   Charles de Lint

   Whiskey River

Crowing

Artwork (c) by Larry Eifert

 

 

Seven raucous crows in my oak tree this morning.  I think it is a mated pair with hangers-on, either their offspring or members of their extended family.  I recognized some of their calls as bonding cawing.  A prelude to mating, perhaps?  Or bragging about what has already occurred?  Either way, can spring be far behind?

 

Grandson Donovan will have the splints in his nose removed this morning.  I couldn't be there for his surgery, but I'm meeting my daughter Kareema and Donovan at the medical center where the procedure takes place later this morning.  He's been advised that this will be uncomfortable to downright painful.  Kareema knows he'll want to hold/squeeze her hand during this, so she's preparing for her own painful session.  He's going to feel a great deal better once they're out and he can return to school.  Probably do some bragging of his own.

Short post today.  So far, these are the most interesting things going on in my life this morning.

But, the day is young.

Inside the Mind of Crow

Donovan and Nanny 1993

The Crow of which I speak is not avian.  I am the Crow in question.

I’m treading on unfamiliar ground here, trying to publicly analyze the inner workings of something so familiar yet so exasperatingly foreign to me.  There are times when I wonder if I might also be an Aspie, especially as it defines my general lack of interpersonal skills.  My grandson, Donovan, and I share a number of neuropsychological traits, but differ in our approaches to other people, in our abilities to recognize when we have gone too far, or even completely awry, in our efforts to connect to others, and in how to prevent ourselves from making those same missteps in the future.

We went to watch “The Hobbit” last Sunday at a local theater.  As the credits rolled and the low lights came up, some older teens, perhaps college freshmen or sophomores, behind us began talking about – analyzing, actually – the literary merits of the various scenes just viewed.  Grandson turned around to join in, but was out of his league, though, to their credit, the other young people engaged him.  Donovan didn’t catch that they weren’t talking about the computer graphics wonders of the film, but he kept plugging on.  I think he was trying to impress the lone girl in the group of five. 

Donovan’s language was that of a much younger kid, maybe 12 or 13, but at 6’5” with shoulders to match, he obviously is older than that.

At some point, the other kids (hey, they’re decades younger than I, so they’re kids) tried to take back the conversation they had started.  Grandson tagged along, or tried to, anyway.  Girl-of-his-focus said to her friends, “Did any of you notice the allegory in the movie about the dwarves being like the Jews?”

Nobody answered her.

“You know, how they were driven from their lands, had all their gold and treasures stolen from them?”

Still no response from her friends.  Donovan tried to talk about how cool the dragon Smaug looked.

“When they became wanderers?”  Girl tried without success to get a response from her friends, and turned sharply away from Donovan.

He persisted.  He didn’t understand the body-language signals that said she didn’t want to include him in the conversation.

He also wasn’t aware of the mounting tension between our group and theirs.  My daughter was getting her mother-bear look in her eyes and sat up too straight in her seat.  The other kids noticed it, but not Grandson. 

To break the tension, I asked the girl, “What was your first clue?”  Fortunately, everybody laughed, though Grandson wasn’t sure why that was funny.  Me, neither, in retrospect, but it broke the tension and gave them a graceful out.  We all gathered our coats and left the theater.

I’ve thought about this interchange several times over the last few days.  About how I had (still have) the same inability to fit in with my peers in social settings. 

Like Donovan, I found (find) it easier to relate to people either much younger or much older than I.  I fall all over myself with people in my age group, both men and women, frequently missing cues that tell me I’ve committed a faux pas and need to shut the heck up, three minutes ago!

Like Donovan, too, I didn’t (don’t) always understand what just happened to break the connection.  However, I’ve since learned to recognize that there has been a break.  My usual response is to withdraw, not participate.  I find it easier to do that than to continue struggling to fit in.  No doubt, I’ve lost out on some valuable experiences by not struggling onward, but sometimes it just hurts too much to try.  Fortunately for Grandson, he hasn’t given up; he valiantly carries on. 

I continue to put my foot – uh, make that feet – in my mouth when dealing with my peers and have left behind me a trail of baffled could-have-been-friends.  In the process, some of them have labeled me “odd-duck”, “strange-bird” or, more recently, “quirky”.  It suggests that I’m too different.  I can’t tell if they’re teasing me or not, but the sting remains, regardless.

When that happens, I “pull in my horns,” as the I Ching advises when you’ve gone too far in your dealings with others.  The image I have when I read that expression is of a snail pulling in its eye stalks, then retreating into its shell, which I too often do.

I hope I can learn why I retreat, why I “step in it” in the first place, and how to repair the damage I may have done so that I may help Grandson find an easier way to navigate through life.  People like us, he and I, are in the minority, and as such, we are the ones who must make the effort to adapt, to change who we are inside, so that we may fit in.  At least, fit in better, because there are some very good things about us, because of the way we are, that would be terrible to lose.

For us and for the rest of the world.