Winter

I've been preparing for winter lately. In more than one way.

There's the obvious - pulling up carrots, raking, packing away my lawn furniture (between my freezer and washing machine since I don't have a garage). We've been lucky this year with a long, warm fall. I don't know how many conversations I've had on the schoolyard that start, "This may be our last nice day..." And every nice day is filled with one more rake or one more mow or one more hour of sitting outside thinking this may be my last hour outside without windburn.

I'm still not ready; there's work left to do. There are more annuals to pull out (but they're still blooming!) and I'm told my lawnmower needs to be drained. (Oh goody, I get to smell like gasoline one more time.) And I'm not ready to let go. To trade the crunch of leaves for the crunch of snow. The colours of flowers and maple leaves, for grey, sanded streets and yellow snow. The warm sun for the biting blizzards. To watch nature around me die and be buried.

Another way I've been preparing for winter is by spending time with biblical dudes like Jonah and Hosea. That's because I'm going to be teaching Bible college again in January. The march toward winter for me means less and less time for late night Starbucks runs and House reruns, and more and more time for writing lectures, creating Powerpoints, and printing handouts. Letting go of my relaxing, balanced, organized life (and home!) and being stretched yet again. I'm not ready.

I wish it was only my free time and flowers that are dying. In September, when I blogged about explaining Terry Fox's cancer to my frightened daughter, I couldn't have known that my Grandma, who had recently fallen ill, would be diagnosed with terminal cancer one month later. Every time we visit she seems a little smaller, a little weaker, a little more medicated. Every time I leave I think, this may be our last time together. That's stretching me in ways I'm not ready to be stretched.

It's hard to watch the colours fade and something of beauty slip away. I see it every year in Manitoba. But never like this one.