January Thaw

January 24, 2011 at 4:43 AM

Traversing the country goes much like patchwork quilting. As I travel, I observe the many different people that make up this multi-colored sphere. We meet at the airport like kaleidoscope patterns, merging and departing on choreographed schedules to the hue that we call home.

My particular place is a snippet of blue and white in the north corner, but as I cross the threshold of the house I left nearly five weeks ago, I feel little connection to it. No cross-stitch patterns of sweet sentiment attach me to this particular location. No familiar welcome smell greets me at the door. I feel distant, yet obliged to this carpet that needs vacuumed before lessons begin. But my true home awaits just down the road with a coffee mug and a table of friends, amongst the community that makes up Soldotna.

The first week back always proves difficult when multiple last-minute cancellations need reckoning. Each thinks they are the only one, but each swatch of fabric is held to the next with a row of stitches that, when clipped, unravels. Next thing you know, one person's missing tuition becomes four. As I plan out each conversation, I fret about friendships, contracts, confrontations, and the difference between selfishness and self-respect.

Yet, amidst this initial icy reception, I find myself being showered throughout the week with an unexpected flurry of random kindness, from a myriad of people I don't even know. Such randomness begs for an explanation: weather patterns?--sun spots?--year of the rabbit? Whatever the case, something's happened that's put my heart in a warming trend, despite being minus twenty and mid-January.

I head to town for coffee, pondering human potential and the contrast between good and evil--when placed side by side, what lovely and interesting patterns it makes. As I go, the low-lying sunlight through snow-laden branches glitters like wind chimes and magic.

What a beautiful mess.