Viso Gero, Sausis (Goodbye - January)

Cracking Ice

Usually I am never at a loss for what to write about. This is not writer’s block. I feel like I have survived an avalanche of news from January and am recovering from a coma. There were brilliantly written Substacks I could not respond to. I did not know where to start. Usually I focus on the words that match my thoughts, but there were too many.

After I posted on Monday, I went outside to face the ice covered foot of snow. There was no one to help me. The man next door came out to tell me I was not going to get through “that.” I asked him what he meant and he offered me a lecture on the fact that there was a layer of ice over the snow. “Well duh,” I thought and told him I would still work on clearing it. I quickly learned that the ice cracked into sheets I could pick up and there was fresh white powder underneath. I think there is a metaphor for what I just wrote: Crack ice, find pure soft snow. It took me three sessions to clear my walk and half of the steps to the street.

Tuesday, I worked in my back yard because I needed to get to my garage down the alley. Yes it is a separate piece of property where my car was safe. After two well executed falls and a level one sprained ankle, I got to my car, backed it down to my house and put it back in. I felt like Rocky at the top of the museum steps. Never tell me I can’t get through something.

Wednesday, I backed the car up to my gate, loaded my overnight bag, the dog bag and Beau into the front of my car. It was time to drop my foster dog off on my way to the Eastern shore for my scheduled acupuncture appointment. Beau laid on his Oriole blanket belted into the passenger seat. He gave me the saddest eyes and shivered. The dam broke and I cried. I don’t have foster fails. I am a “halfway house” to a “furever home” where Beau slept Wednesday night. Another painful and love filled success.

Thursday, after spending the night in the most haunted room at the Atlantic Hotel in Berlin, MD, my doctor asked me how my night was. I told her about how the ghost and I watched the paranormal channel. I received before and after pictures of my front steps that my former next door neighbor cleared for me while I was gone.

My daughter would have but she was snowed in and could not get to her car. It sunk in that my current neighbors did not help me. In that quiet, the weight of the world’s news—the parents I know who lost children to gun violence—pressed in on me. I felt incredibly alone and had an existential moment. My empathetic soul felt the pain the world is suffering from. My doctor softly said, “you are grieving.”

I went back to the hotel for lunch and conversation at the bar where everyone knows my name. I have stayed in “my” haunted Jane Austin room for at least seven years to see the doctor who has known me for at least 20 years. I am a creature of habit who does not like change. The conversation steered to funerals, I told the retired funeral director how absurdly humorous Lithuanians get during the repast. She knew. The bartender did not charge me for my ginger beer. I told her to work on that list for the perfect husband. The retiring school teacher talked about cleaning out his classroom. He surprised me by saying “viso gero” and tipped his hat as he headed toward the door. I am not alone; it just feels like that at times. Feelings are important, especially when facts and the real world become overwhelming. I reside in fictional and personal villages—and I look forward to cracking the rest of the ice.