Yule like this one.
If you’re wondering, the answer is: yes…that’s me circa early 1970s. The story goes that my dad plopped me onto this snowdrift and, being only three years old, I guess I was scared to walk down. So I just cried and cried and cried. And my dad took a photo to document my misery. The snowdrift was probably about two feet off the ground, but regardless, it’s clear I felt trapped with one tool in my toolbox: tears.
At Target this week, I was ringing up some last-minute holiday stuff at the self check-out, when a mom with a screaming baby in a stroller set her basket at the register next to me. She started singing Frosty the Snowman as she pushed the stroller back and forth with one hand and attempted to ring up her things with the other. This did nothing to soothe her baby and only seemed to add more stress to the situation. I tried to tell her how much I wished I could just scream like that in an attempt to add some humor, but the muffled mumbles from behind my mask only seemed to fluster her more.
Nine months of quarantine, shelter in place, stay at home or whatever you want to call it, provides very little space for one to lose her shit and just scream for the sake of screaming. That’s not to say there isn’t joy or love or hope in the world right now. There’s a vaccine for starters! And it’s hard not to feel joy when your nine-year-old son’s singing Santa’s Coming to Town at the top of his lungs in the shower. But I’m tired and I’m frazzled and I’m anxious about the unknowns in the year to come.
I wonder if that head-to-toe red plaid snowsuit with the fur-trimmed hood comes in an adult size? Now to find a snowdrift.
THIS MONTH’S FEEL-GOOD FINDS: YULE LOG STREAMS
