December: a poem in progress

The title to this blog entry refers to both an actual poem I’m working on and the general state of my mind and heart at this time. I’ve had some recent professional wins that I haven’t done any or much flogging on the Internet for because this past month I’ve had deaths in my family that I needed to mourn and participate in grieving rituals for. Above is a photo of sympathy flowers and a card I received from my retail job coworkers and managers for the death of my wife’s mother. I also lost my last maternal aunt recently.

December is one of the deadliest months of the year, according to many studies. December is the month of the darkest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere as well. Living in Minneapolis, the northernmost state of the Union outside Alaska, I am also suffering through another arctic-level winter snow and below-zero-Fahrenheit freeze.

Growing up having to walk and catch buses to school in Michigan while dressed in Kmart winter gear, I have always hated winter with the heat of a thousand suns that I wished I carried within me to stay warm. Here in Minnesota, the winter is so much worse — longer, colder and darker: My mom noticed after she first moved here in around 2000 that the sun in the winter here never rose to the top of the sky at midday. I told her it’s because we’re so far north that the sun stays low in the winter. In my mother, and in myself, winter darkness can trigger depression. We each have our own ways of fighting off that drop in our moods.

Today, I have the funds to buy winter wear that can withstand the frigid temperatures, plus I have a car so I can choose not to catch a bus. I have a home that I can afford to heat and to insulate to conserve energy. Still, winter’s darkness, coldness and deadliness always threatens to pull me into its frigid void.