My Winter of Discontent

Maybe it started when I was running and hurt my knee, the discontent that is. To compensate I favored that knee and now I feel like I am walking with a wobble.  Then both legs started aching and I especially feel it at night while in bed.  

The feeling of being wobbly went from my legs to my head.  It is a sense of being lethargic and not caring about things I should get done around the house. I seem to be floating in slow motion.  How many weeks have I been looking at the mess underneath my laundry sink thinking I should clean it out? It would probably take fifteen minutes at the most, but I am fighting with myself over its importance in the scheme of things.

This winter has not been as blustery and brutal as last year’s so I should be happier that the roads are clear and I can come and go as I please, but there is a discontent that puts me in a peculiar spot.  I ask myself why I seem not as happy as I should be. Why do I not care if I come and go? Why do I sometimes wish I could just stay in bed and cover up my head?

Maybe it is the books I’ve been reading.  I just finished Anne Lamott’s Imperfect Birds.  It is fiction dealing with a teenager and drugs and her parent’s obliviousness to much of what she was doing until it reached a breaking point. The ending is satisfactory, but the story line is disconcerting.

Now I am reading a nonfiction book by Steve Luxenberg,  Annie’s Ghosts...A Journey into a Family Secret.  This book is set in Detroit where Steve grew up with a mother who said she was an only child.  At the end of her life it was discovered that she had a sister who spent 30 years in a mental institution in Detroit.  Even though Steve and his siblings had gotten this information before their mother's death, his mother never mentioned it and they didn't ask so she took it to her grave. After his mother’s death Steve started investigating and the story is a grim one.  I have not yet finished this fascinating book.  

To break up the depressing books I stop to read an essay in David Sedaris’ book Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls….essays, etc.  I find myself giggling at his writing style. I heard David speak several years ago and I was laughing so hard I was getting tears in my eyes.  I need writers like him to  reverse the winter doldrums.

John Steinbeck wrote the book The Winter of Our Discontent, but he got the name of that book from a quote in Shakespeare’s Richard III. Richard begins the play by saying:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York

And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried

Most people just quote “Now is the winter of our discontent,” but to do that is to miss the fact that Richard is saying because of the son of York, his discontent is gone and buried in the ocean. However as the play continues, Richard’s unhappiness returns.  

I think I am susceptible to the gray of Michigan winters.  Yet I do not want to go to sunnier climes.  Our grandchildren and children are close by and we don’t want to be absent grandparents.  

I know that if I use my discontent as a stepping stone to understanding why I feel this way, maybe I can have a glorious summer both literally and figuratively.  It is up to me. Meanwhile the sun is lighting up this day and there is no discontent in that.

 

La Mort d'un Oiseau

With mittened hand I scooped

the glassy eyed frozen body

into a soft cradle

The tell tale feather on the

window had drawn my eye

to the stillness in the afternoon

Often in shock, a bird

can be warmed back

to life, but not now

I had waited too long,

and blamed myself

for not seeing sooner

The needles of the dark pine

gently took the
soft black feathers

Covering the small body with snow        

I knew its death came in a flash               

While searching for the light

This poem is dedicated to people around the world who value free speech and those who have lost their lives over practicing this human right.  

Avery, Me and Junie B.

This is a tale of two stories.  There is the comical side and there is the warm and fuzzy side.  I will start with the comical side.  

Once upon a year when the grandchildren were a lot younger, they often wanted me to read to them.  Bella brought me a book entitled June B. Jones and The Stupid Smelly Bus.  I have discovered since that this series of books written by Barbara Park all start out with the same paragraph.  It goes like this:

My name is Junie B. Jones.  The B stands for Beatrice.  Except I don’t like Beatrice.  I just like B. and that’s all.  

I was no more than two paragraphs into reading the first book and I was laughing.  Every other paragraph made me giggle and laugh.  I had to stop and catch my breath to continue reading.  The granddaughters then started laughing at my laughing.  

Junie has a friend named Lucille and one named Grace and she is a kindergartener in the first books.  She calls her teacher Mrs. and her first person point of view, how she acts and what comes out of her mouth is unbelievably joyous writing. Junie is irreverent, speaks her mind and is a constant source of frustration to the adults around her.  I love her spunk!

In Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth, the book I laughed through next with the grand kids, Junie says after she introduces herself:

I go to kindergarten.  My room is named Room Nine.  There are lots of rules in that place.

Like no shouting

And no running in the hall.

And no butting the other children in the stomach with your head.  

My teacher’s name is Mrs.  

She has another name too, but I just like Mrs.

The following are excerpts from a book Avery just read to me entitled Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying.

kindergarten  -  Kindergarten is what comes before first grade.  Except for I don’t know why it’s named that dumb word of kindergarten. ‘Cause it should be named zero grade, I think.

work  -  Work is when you use your brain and a pencil.  Only sometimes I accidentally use the eraser too hard.  And a hole comes in my paper.

the grocery store - Saturday is the day me and my mother go to the grocery store.  It is very fun at that place.  Except for no hollering I WANT ICE CREAM!  And no calling Mother the name of big meanie.  

spying - I am a very good spier.  That’s because I have sneaky feet.  And my nose doesn’t whistle when I breathe.

the water fountain - No putting your mouth on the water spout.  Or else germs will get inside you.  And you will die.

secrets - Nobody can see secrets inside your head.  Not even if they look in your ears.  

In November I found two Junie B. books at the library book sale and brought them home.  I knew all our grandchildren were too old for them, but here is where the warm and fuzzy part of my tale comes in.  I asked Avery who is in fourth grade if she wanted the books.  She said they were second grade reading level and she was reading at a 6th grade level.  

I told her I knew she was beyond those books, but they were so funny and always made me laugh.  She looked at me and said, “Do you want me to read to you?  I could use the practice of reading out loud because sometimes I don’t do it very well at school.”  

I globbed onto the chance to hear her read and so we covered up with a fuzzy blanket and she began.  I could not help laugh at the amusing language and when I did that, Avery would look at me and smile and read the part again for emphasis.  She would often stop to look at the illustrations in the book and say, “Oh, oh trouble ahead.”  I knew she was enjoying the story as much as I was.  

We have finished two books since before Christmas and Avery got a big box full from her mother’s classroom to keep us reading into next year.  I just learned that Barbara Parks, the author of the wonderful series, died in 2013 of ovarian cancer.  It breaks my heart that she will not be writing anymore Junie B. books. I hope she knew how much her books are loved.  

Avery turns ten today (January 12) and she may lose interest in entertaining her grandmother, but the warm memories will last. What could be better than Avery, me and Junie B.?