A new year's afternoon

As I write, it is not yet three thirty in the afternoon, but the dull yellow winter light coming in through the window makes the day feel much older. The light is a tease at the moment, but the sun is not to blame. It’s the tree between the apartment window and the sun (as if a tree was all that was between!) flailing in the wind, which is cold and gusty and endless today. It’s a colorless kaleidoscope, but oh, how wonderfully the light dances.

The classical station is playing a light opera in the distance, from the dining room, but A. and I are reclining on couches in the living room, reading works of fiction. She is wrapped up in P.D. James’ The Lighthouse, and the dancing light is bronzing her brunette hair, in all its fashionably-styled glory. I wonder if whether her being here constitutes a miracle, or just a wonderful mercy of God, or whether there is any difference between the two. Not so long ago she was far away, in India, and a closeness we had shared during college seemed nothing but a memory. But here she is, my dear friend restored. I think of the way we’ve been able to talk and laugh over the last few days, of how grateful I am for her and how stupid the whole of the male population is to have overlooked this gem. Yet for the interim, until that particular folly is disabused, it’s nice to have her among the dwindling ranks of the waiting. And I recall a line from the book I just finished, which references The Book: “hope deferred is still hope.” In some small way, I think A. and I are living proof.

Today is very cold – it never got above freezing, or even close – and I am grateful to be in tights and corduroys and a long-sleeved shirt and a heavy flannel on top of it all. I’ve had this flannel for most of my life, purchased at Price Club (if I recollect correctly) for a camping trip in junior high. Funny, the pieces that endure.

I wonder what else will endure this new year. I sink again into one of the much-beloved red couches, by the light of matching lamps that are a story unto themselves, and catch a glimpse of my own Facebook profile and almost do a double take at Washington, D.C. being my “current city” – as if I don’t walk by the Supreme Court and Capitol buildings most days of my life. I don’t know why it catches me so off guard some days. I suppose I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I’m doing here lately, which has taken me back to a time when D.C. wasn’t a sure thing – so I get surprised again.

I suppose that’s a good thing. I often tell people that I believe D.C. is perceived the way it is because the headliners who work here overstay their wonder for the place, and what it means. Though it hides some days, the wonder still abides, so I guess that means I’m still meant to be here.

The normal-that-isn’t-really-but-is-to-me will restart soon. Everyone will return from their holiday siestas, and the routine of tele-town halls and vote recs and ever-present political panic will set in. But so will the routines that aren’t so bad – Bistro pizza with E., Sunday afternoon lunches with friends, girls’ dinners and the life God has blessed me with. I have so much, and a whisper last night reminded me of a promise of more than I could ask or imagine. What effect can that possibly have on me, other than producing amazement, joy, a looking-forward?