winter

Keep warm

January 12, 2018 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

fireplace

Embedded within even the smallest conversation around here are certain customs which are expected to be upheld.

Any inquiry as to your own well-being must be met with “I’m doin’ good,” even if you are not. Especially if you are not. This rule does not apply to your kin, however. If your momma is ill, you can say and should, as likely this will result in some promise of prayer on your momma’s behalf. But if you’re the one sick, that is for someone else to say. You might be coughing up a lung and seeing visions of the dead, but anything other than “I’m doin’ good” will risk word getting out that you’ve turned rude. Lies are part of every interaction. That’s how it’s done.

Complicated, I know.

Chief among these unwritten rules of talk is the salutation one gives upon parting company. Most times, this includes no more than a variation of “goodbye.” (Please, though: if you’re in the Virginia Blue Ridge, don’t ever say “goodbye.” It’s bad enough here to be known as rude, but very much worse to be known as fancy.) “I’ll see ya” is the standard. “Holler at me” also works. “You take care, now” seems a relic of times long past, though we in the mountains are all about relics and so will use this phrase often.

Sometimes a salutation will arise en masse according to some current and dire situation. A system of low pressure stuck over the valley will bring the sage advice to “Stay dry, now.” And there is the always apt “Be careful,” which is not only suitable for any circumstance but also adds a welcome friendly concern. You’ll hear that often, whether at the Food Lion or the Ace or the Dairy Queen. “Be careful” makes you feel good whether you’re the one speaking it or being told.

The past week has given rise to an oldie but a goodie, especially for this time of year. We’ve been below zero for days. Pipes freezing and homes lost to careless fires, extra blankets on the bed and all the dogs inside. So what you’ll hear now is the same for both stranger and friend when ways are parted—“You keep warm.”

Those three words have stuck with me in a way that not even “Be careful” has managed. It’s part plea and part warning with a healthy dose of regard thrown in. Call it a wish for wintertime, January’s version of “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

I’ve read and heard of people who forgo New Year’s resolutions in favor of some word or phrase to base their lives upon for the next twelve months. Hope. Faith. Love. Community. Focus. It can be anything, I guess. I kind of like that idea. My problem is that I’ve never been able to settle on a single thing that could sum up all I wish for others and myself. But I think that’s all been settled now.

You keep warm.

I like it.

That is my prayer for you this year. To keep warm in body but in soul most of all, in heart. To keep loving and hoping and seeing this old world as a beautiful thing worth saving. And I think it’s a fine thing to say to others, because it’s cold out there. All you need is to turn on the news or sit in some coffee shop to know we’re all at each other’s throats. Too much anger and too much hate, too much of those few things about us that are different rather than the many things that are the same.

There’s job stuff to worry about, and all those ills. Kids who grow up overnight. The ones you love most getting sick, getting old. That lump you feel—is that cancer? And what if this Christmas really is the last you’ll spend with your mom, your dad, your husband or wife?

Living is a hard thing. You keep warm.

Pull the ones you love close. Don’t be afraid to say “I love you.” Help a stranger. Take a walk in the woods. Keep warm.

Read a book that will change your life. Seek out beauty. Be good. Turn the other cheek. Always forgive. Sit and be quiet. Don’t be as concerned for present-you as you are for future-you.

Pray. Hope. Believe.

Keep warm.

Catching the sun

October 29, 2015 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

graphic depicting reflected sunlight in Rjukan, Norway.

The day is gloomy as I write this, rainy and chilly and overcast—the sort of weather that makes summer feel far behind and winter just around the corner. The leaves have gone from green to bright yellows and reds, but even now there is a crunchy blanket of dead brown ones on the ground. The robins are gone, as is the garden. All that’s left of both are the empty nests in our trees and the canned vegetables in our cupboards.

You would think I’m used to it, this shifting of the seasons. Four times a year for forty-three years, that means I’ve gone through this 180 times. I should be a pro. I’m not. Aside from Christmas, I’ve never liked winter. I’ve read there are more suicides between October and March than any other time of year. I can understand that. The cold and dark can get a person down. Around here, people say winter is a season that gets inside you.

I was thinking about all this a little bit ago while digging through the stack of papers on my desk. Midway through was a story about a Norwegian town called Rjukan, whose people know all about the cold and dark. Settled deep in a valley floor, the sun moves so low across the sky in winter that it leaves the entire town in perpetual evening. The sun doesn’t shine in Rjukan at all between September and March. It gets so bad that locals take a cable car to the top of the mountains just to stand in the light.

Sounds like a pretty horrible way to spend half your year, doesn’t it? But if things go according to plan, all that is about to change.

Over the summer, helicopters hoisted three massive mirrors 450 meters above Rjukan and anchored them to the sides of the valley. Called heliostats, the mirrors are controlled by computers to follow the path of the sun and reflect a day-long beam of light that will fall directly into the center of the town square. No more cable cars to the mountains, no more endless gloom. The people of Rjukan will only have to take a short walk to the square to catch a bit of sun. They will all gather there and be together. They will all stand in the light.

I’m thinking about that little town a lot on this gloomy morning.

I’m thinking about how it really is true that winter gets inside you. It can hunch you over and make you wince, it can steal your smile, and oftentimes it doesn’t matter at all what the season is on the outside. I know people who walk around in July, but it’s still winter in their hearts. I guess that’s sometimes by choice. More often than not, though, I really don’t think it is. This world’s a tough place. It can hurt.

But I’m thinking about those three mirrors most of all, the ones now sitting high in that Norwegian valley and catching that sun. I’m thinking about how that’s what you and I should be—reflectors. Shining a light into the dark places. Bringing warmth to the cold around us. Not a light and a warmth of our own making, but ones greater and eternal.

Yes, I think so.

Welcoming the storm

February 16, 2015 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

There’s a storm coming. No one around here needs to turn on the news to know this, though if they would, they’d be greeted with an unending stream of weather updates and projected snowfall totals. “Gonna be a bad one, folks,” the weatherman said a bit ago. But I knew that when I walked outside. It was the way the sun hung low in a heavy, gray sky, and how the crows and cardinals and mockingbirds sounded more panicked than joyful. It was the five deer coming out of the woods and the raccoon in the backyard, how they foraged for enough food to last them these next few days.

We are no strangers to winter storms here. Still, it is cause for some interesting scenes. There are runs on bread and milk, of course, and salt and shovels, and there must be kerosene for the lamps and wood for the fire and refills for whatever medications, an endless stream of comings and goings, stores filled with chatter—“Foot and a half, I hear,” “Already coming down in Lexington”—children flushing ice cubes and wearing their pajamas inside out as offerings to the snow gods.

It is February now. The Virginia mountains have suffered right along with the rest of the country these past months. We’ve shivered and shook and dug out, cursed the very snow gods that our children entreat to give them another day away from school. Winter is a wearying time. It gets in your bones and settles there, robbing the memory of the way green grass feels on bare feet and the sweet summer smell of honeysuckled breezes. It’s spring we want, always that. It’s fresh life rising up from what we thought was barren ground. It’s early sun and late moon. It’s the reminder that nothing is ever settled and everything is always changing.

But there’s this as well—buried beneath the scowls of having to freeze and shovel, everywhere I go is awash with an almost palpable sense of excitement. Because, you see, a storm is coming. It’s bearing down even now, gonna be a bad one, folks, I hear a foot and a half, and it may or may not already be coming down in Lexington.

We understand that sixteen inches of snow will be an inconvenience. We know the next day or two will interrupt the otherwise bedrock routine we follow every Monday through Friday. And yet a part of us always welcomes interruptions such as these, precisely because that’s what they do. They interrupt. They bring our busy world to a halt. They slow us down and let us live.

Come Tuesday morning, I expect to see a world bathed in white off my front porch. I expect to put aside work and worry and play instead. I’ll build a snowman and a fort. I’ll throw snowballs and play snow football and eat snowcream. I’ll put two feet so cold they’ve gone blue by the fire and sip hot chocolate. I’ll laugh and sigh and ponder and be thankful. For a single day, I’ll be my better self.

That’s the thing about storms. We seldom welcome them, sometimes even fear them. Too often, we pray for God to keep them away. Yet they will come anyway, and to us all. For that, I am thankful. Because those storms we face wake us up from the drowse that too often falls over our souls, dimming them to a dull glow, slowly wiping away the bright shine they are meant to have.

Welcoming the storm

February 13, 2014 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

Come Thursday morning, I expect to see a world bathed in white off my front porch. I expect to put aside work and worry and play instead. I’ll build a snowman and a fort. I’ll throw snowballs and play snow football and eat snowcream. I’ll put two feet so cold they’ve gone blue by the fire and sip hot chocolate. I’ll laugh and sigh and ponder and be thankful. For a single day, I’ll be my better self.