In the Winter of Our Times, The Bittersweet

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have Promises to Keep,
And Miles to go Before I sleep,
And Miles to go Before I sleep"
- Robert Frost, 1922

I keep coming back to this final stanza by one of the modern (20th Century) poems I greatly admire, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". My grandfather was only six years old when it was first published a year later. Why is this significant to me now? Well, it is the first official day of the coldest and darkest season of the year in North America, and usually not my favorite. Like most humans (I would imagine), I seek light, warmth, and shelter not unlike the lower animal beings, but we have also develped this habit over the years of gathering by said light warmth and shelter and opening these curious things called books. Some of us even presume to mull our thoughts over and commit the results to paper (or computer), following a grand tradition of contemplative writing.

This poem, in particular, has stayed with me all the years since I first read it in high school, because it reflects many things recently occurring in my personal life as well as the world's collective experience. At different points, this stanza was a mantra to "keep going", to not give up into despair and self-destructive thoughts. I remember this as clearly as I can recite "The Lord is My Shepherd", and I find that they complement each other, in a way. Now, it reminds me to stop a while and reflect, admire tranquility, simple beauties often overlooked or disparaged. It has always been the kind of thing my mind wanders to when I am feeling particularly alone and cold walking about by myself, which often happens in this time of the year. Funny that my birthday falls on one such day, practically in the middle of winter, as a constant challenge to my continued determination to exist with significance and purpose.

I stumbled upon a rather engaging website called mental_floss where I could literally wallow away any down feelings with as many trivia facts and theories that my mind could absorb. Imagine my pleasure to find a poignant and thoroughly appropriate list of select quotations from Mister Fred Rogers, a PBS staple in my childhood home.

Mister Rogers, Robert Frost and Bob Ross... sigh....

Please enjoy below, especially #3...
- The wisdom of Mister Rogers... mental_floss

I am glad that a lot of hard discussions are currently at the forefront of public consciousness and media coverage. In the past week, a lost soul reached his breaking point and killed his mother, 20 6- and 7-year-olds, six courageous educators and then himself. We also more quietly welcomed back into safety veteran NBC news anchor Richard Engel and his crew from Syrian abductees. Large tragedies and small miracles abound in both stories continuing to unfold. We have some major decisions to be made as a nation of many peoples but one destiny. One day we will all be gone, but it remains to be seen, what or whom will be forgotten.

I leave you with this...

Transitions

The eve of winter is nigh... the shortest and darkest day of the year in these parts, and although it is a symbolic death, it also summons the sun back to its lofty perch. Last week I saw The Hobbit by myself because I didn't want to pay $21 to try and get into the same theater that my friends were watching with their tickets bought in September. Plus I am not the biggest IMAX-and-3D junkie. I was a bit sad that I didn't have anyone there to commiserate with on plots, or to wake me up when I dozed off during one of the drawn out under-the-mountain hikes the Dwarves embarked upon.

It really is funny when I think about it, how my life this year had its twists and turns emotionally, yet some aspects were a singular consistent trajectory away from one thing towards another. The statement that entered my mind at the beginning of the year, when I celebrated my 30th birthday was, "I am nobody's princess, so I will have to be my own warrior". I kind of kept this as a secret mantra, to keep reminding myself of what I wanted and needed to accomplish to feel better about myself and pull myself out of the emotional rut of the previous year.

I didn't really have a clear battle plan for how to be my own warrior though. I knew that I had to stop feeling sorry for my failures in my romantic relationships, and stop being fatalistic that I would never find anyone again that would love me for me and genuinely pursue my attention and embrace. Being rejected really is shell-shocking on a certain level. I have dealt with my own discouragement after applying for jobs and fellowships, worried that I was not good enough, and having my fears confirmed. I have even felt my faith in my current arrangement falter just enough to lose the will to put my best effort in, but cynically not enough to completely walk away into the promising blank slate of what's next....

I wanted adventure but I was too stung by previous folly to even pull out the map this time and place my finger down blindly.

It has always been time to build the roads on that map, though. To get out there in the jungle even by speedboat on the river, if necessary, and cut one's way back, forging a path to be the first installation of a new route. So I have had to ask myself what kind of woman would I be. I wish I were in some kind of epic film where some alpha leader-type character would address a group,asking who would take up arms or join the scouting party through dangerous terrain. "I can't promise you will all return," that person always warns, but I stand up anyway, or I even yell out my own supporting leadership call. "We will take the North road and rendezvous at the fork in the path at sunset", something like that.

Sometimes one has to decide whether it is fitting to remain in an underpaying, uninspiring position, or pursue one where professionalism ultimately must overshadow previous intimacies, for the sake of a genuine chance to prove one's inherent higher value. When do you protect the king or defect with a small contingent? Why is this so grimly battle-themed? Am I just in a romanticized fantasy-based mood to deflect from other tormented thoughts in my current state? What if I don't get this job anyway? I hope that I won't dissolve into a puddle of desperation. Maybe I should quit at the end of the year anyway and book that ticket to Spain, M....