This post, written almost exactly two years ago, speaks to my heart today. Though winter seems to keep blasting on, though we’re still quarantined inside our homes for almost a month now, all is not lost. My rhubarb has once again dared to break through the frozen ground to remind me that this plot has yet to fully unfold.
In Michigan this year, winter had stamina. It seemed to begin way back in October and continue halfway through April. The temperatures were low, the snow banks were high, the skies were gray, and all felt bleak.
My daughter once informed me, after I had been an English teacher for well over a decade, that when nature imitates the mood of the story, literary critics refer to the phenomenon as pathetic fallacy.
We see it all the time in literature and movies: rain falls during funerals, the sun shines on parades, lightning flashes and thunder claps as the evil villain hatches his plan. Writers use the setting of a story to create mood and to signal for readers how they might feel about the action of the narrative.
Sometimes it seems to happen in real life, too.
As the winter wore on this year in all its bleakness, and as circumstances in the narrative of my life unfolded, I took my signal from nature and wrapped myself in gray. I didn’t see any buds on trees, any new growth in my garden, or any other signals from nature that I should hope. I saw the earth hunkering down under the weighty blanket of snow, and I hunkered, too. I wrapped myself in crocheted afghans, drank cup after cup of tea, and waited for the earth’s axis to tilt once again toward the sun.
Some moments, I didn’t believe it would. I felt we were stuck in winter forever. Storm after storm raged. Winds blew. Temperatures dropped. The world outside was harsh and unforgiving. I had no reason to believe that we would ever again see tulips sprout from the earth.
I didn’t, of course, spend the whole winter under covers. I did what everyone who lives in the north does in the winter. I slathered my body in moisturizers, layered on clothing, pulled on boots, hat, gloves, and coat, and trudged into the elements. Day after day after long, cold, dismal day, I drove over slushy roads, stepped in salty puddles, and scraped icy windshields. The cold gray weather was both real and symbolic.
The problem with pathetic fallacy — with letting the setting signal the mood — is that you can lose your frame of reference. All winter I was shrouded in gray, so all of the action in my narrative seemed to take on that hue. Now, to be honest, my life narrative is cluttered at the moment with conflict and unresolved tension. Villains too numerous to list are executing evil plans and threatening to harm those that I love. However, in the midst of the gray of winter, I failed to see that simultaneously, a parallel plot was unfolding — one in which battles are fought and won, victory parades are held, and loved ones are reunited.
All. is. not. gray.
It’s been hard to see that — what with winter lasting so long. It’s been easy to fall for the fallacy — the mistaken belief — that all of life is cold, dark, dormant. In fact, I have over the last several months been pathetic — filled with all kinds of emotion. I have leaned in and felt things that I have not allowed myself to feel for a very long time. I have cried and yelled and moaned because I have looked fully at one strand of the narrative. I’m not sorry; I needed to see it. But guys, winter is gone.
I have a rhubarb plant outside my back door that peeked through the soil on my birthday at the end of March. Since then, it’s been slammed with winter weather — snow, sleet, wind, and rain — and still it is thriving. My garden is a bed of weeds, my yard is a mole metropolis that is sorely in need of raking and mowing, but the sun is shining, and all I can look at is that rhubarb.
The villains haven’t dropped their weapons, the conflicts have not all been resolved, but one stubborn plant that pushed its way through frozen ground way before winter had subsided reminds me that there is more than one thread in my narrative. I have reason to bake pie, to plant seeds, and to fold up my afghans.
Earlier this week when I arrived home from work, my husband said, “Before you sit down, go look at the patio.” I knew before I looked what I would find — the Adirondack chairs that my father-in-law made for us years ago had been put out after their long winter inside.
He had seen it, too: the sunshine, the rhubarb, the reason to hope. So hope we will, as we sit on our patio, faces tilted toward the sun, and we will let this season have a chance to direct our feelings about our narrative.
Psalm 27:13
I am confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
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