Finding the Light
The dreary winter can be cosy and restful. And then it subtly turns oppressive and dreary.
Snow fall is pure magic. A blanket of thick powder can feel comforting and protective. Bright sunlight glistening off an expansive lawn, devoid of footprints, is a gift. Even the gloomy days are lit up from below.
But as the snow thaws, it leaves behind dark and dirty slush. The gloom creeps in, highlighted by the cloud cover that is exceptionally less vibrant than the sparkly snow.
It is such a morning that I find myself waking, not to the sun, but the yellowy glow of my overhead lights. The sun, while awakening later these days, hides behind the covers of the clouds for just a bit longer.
Where is the sun? Asks my son.
It’s there, I reply. But it’s hiding.
It’s there, I repeat to myself.
In the gloom of winter, I find my searching for the light. The promise of all the good things in store. Hope can be grasped if only by the fingertips. But it does flicker in the distance. A light at the end of a tunnel.
I squint ahead, not just because my prescription is old and my eyes are bad, but because the hope feels so far off.
It’s there.
But sometimes that requires a lot of faith to believe.
As the day wanders on, and the evening fast approaches I wait for the sun to makes its quick exit. Calling it a day early as if even the sun feels reluctant to shine for long.
I sit on the couch reading some stories to my kids, knowing soon I will get up and flick on the low, dim lights in order to make dinner.
Yet, the room feels a bit different today. I glance up and realize that instead of the warm glow of the sun dipping below the horizon, a bright, cool ray slants across our laps at a different angle than usual. It is not the farewell glow of winter, but the hopeful glow of a coming spring.
I pull on my boots to step into the day again, and what I see doesn’t feel like the sad muddy remnants of snow, but dirt that has been watered deep in preparation for the new life that it will gently draw into the world soon.
Snow will likely come in again. But the deep, dark of winter is receding and giving way to what once felt like a myth. Or a dream.
Today I found light in the most surprising of places. Not in the arrival of morning, but in the greeting of evening. Reminding ,e hope might not be as far away as it seems. And if it is, it won’t stay that way for long. Light is always with you. And even a pin prick, or a flickering flame, is enough to lead you home.
**Writing Prompt from the Exhale Writers community
