…Whatever is coming our way.

Something bad to struggle with, possibly overcome; something good to be, hopefully, savored and appreciated. The world is confusing and frightening and chaotic in its changes; and monotonous and boring; and, in almost the same moments, tantalizing in its possibilities. Life has a taste so bitter in our defeats, so delicious in our too often too late realization of its beauties; the patterns and colors we should have seen; the tiny miracles we should have better appreciated; the worth of the people who cross or even block our path.

There is a reason the dead of winter; the darkest, shortest, and coldest of days; is celebrated. It isn’t out of joy. It is out of hope.

I’ve never had the faith to flow with the season and its challenges. I freeze up, unable to do what I can do until I can do what I have to do. This may or may not make sense to you. Though I claim, and claim it to be true that I cannot hold on to sorrow or depression, I do realize it when I am in their grip. Sorrow and depression are heavy. They are exhausting. They cannot be allowed to hold us back or down.

Make a move; something positive.

This is what I do. I write. The frozen pipes, the broken shoe lace, the snow and the ice, the branch in the highway that bounced and hit my car, the fuckers who somehow used my bank account to purchase their presents, the recent deaths of people I knew, or knew of… I try to put this and more into some context.

And I try to make some small repairs. Sometimes things get fixed. Sometimes it’s more than half-ass. A small victory is still a victory.

I’m not over it; I’m not… joyful. I am trying to just keep moving, When I realize, later, that I have survived the darker days, I tell myself I should have had more faith. Should have. If we know sorrow and depression are heavy and exhausting, joy, in any quantity, is lighter than air.

Joy, then.

WAIT. I should add that my hope for my family and loved ones, to my friends and theirs, to real surfers everywhere, to those I don’t know, and to the assholes who hacked my account; is that we (yeah, me, too) recognize joy and have joy and share joy. Peace is a bonus gift.