I hated waiting.
If I had one particular complaint,
it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation.
I expected —
an arrival, an explanation, an apology.
There had never been one,
a fact I could have accepted,
were it not true that,
just when I had got used
to the limits and dimensions of one moment,
I was expelled into the next
and made to wonder again
if any shapes hid in its shadows.
Memory is the sense of loss,
and loss pulls us after it.
~Marilynne Robinson from Housekeeping
Winter weather has a way of exacerbating loss, reminding us over and over what it is we’ve lost and still waiting for — the sun’s warmth on our cheeks, the feel of cool breezes in our hair on a sweaty day, the presence of color when numbed by the sky’s constant weeping of whites and grays. We keep waiting for that next moment, and then the next, looking for when we may settle down and stay, however briefly, content.
We are pulled through the shadows of each emerging moment, losing what we just had to mere memory:
Last night, my husband and I attended our children’s former high school’s winter musical production, as we had done for over a decade while our three children were among the actors and actresses on stage. I sat in the audience for two hours, emerged in the music, the singing and the dancing, the beautiful costumes and sets, allowing each wonderful make-believe moment to carry me to the next and the next.
Only after the bows had been taken, the applause and whistles quieted, and we made our way to the lobby to greet the performers, did I realize my loss. My memory of our children overwhelmed me: not as they acted a role in the lights and shadows of the stage, but after the production, in the lobby as themselves, albeit costumed and overly made up, greeting grateful audience members. But where were they last night? Not here, I realized through my tears, not where I was so used to seeing them stand a bit apart from the crowd, smiling and laughing, waiting my turn to hug them.
Gone and moved on to other roles and other stages, far far away.
They have each left the magic and the hard work of high school musical productions into the magic and hard work of real life.
And we are left waiting for each next moment, remembering and accepting, filling and emptying, wintering within our hearts again and again.
Barnstorming 