2022 is now fully underway, though happening much quicker than I would like. After the past few years, many (if not all) of us are like those who after a storm, are dusting away what has blown through, collecting back the things that were lost, and leaving out that which the wind took away and it’s better left that way. No matter our political orientation or economic status, we all were in that storm together.
Here’s a story dedicated to (the rest of) 2022.
Photo thanks to Bethany Brooke Abbott
Year one was The Year of The Snail. I knew it when sitting for dinner in Siam Reap, Cambodia, after a day visiting that great mystery which is Angkor Wat. That whole hot day, I was carried on a motor-buggy from monument to monument, where I walked the remnants of an empire once ruled by a king and a queen who wore gold head pieces and lounged in stone bath houses that looked out above green forests. Sounds of monkeys and farmers below, setting seed into soil. Spirits of the forest worshipped and presented in drama. The women who bent their fingers backwards when they danced.
While sitting for dinner at the end of that surreal day, I saw a snail the size of my hand crawling up a cement pillar. His shell was white and his body a gliding bundle of slime. I knew in that moment it would be The Year of The Snail, slow and steady.
And so it was. Not a year shining with accomplishments or milestones, but a year living with my parents and kindling a love for writing. It came on like hunger does, not sharp and biting, but gradual and aching. The need to write a need I never knew I had until The Year of The Snail.
Year two was the The Year of The Skunk. I knew it when sleeping on the top bunk in my parent’s house. My sister slept on the bottom and at night I heard a rustling from outside the window. I poked out my head and saw that black puffy creature with a white stripe down the middle. He came back every night, scurrying down the small crevice between my house and my neighbors’. That was when I knew it was going to be The Year of The Skunk, a season of learning better boundaries.
And so it was. The skunk is a lone creature who knows when something has gotten too close, and how to tell that thing to leave. Not with violence but with invisible force. The Year of The Skunk was a year I learned to tell what wasn’t mine to stay away and to allow in only what was good and true.
The year of the skunk was a year I learned to tell what wasn’t mine to stay away and to allow in only what was good and true.
Year three was The Year of The Owl. I knew it on New Year’s Eve when my friend and I fell asleep after a long night, and out the window we heard the hoo-hoo-ing of an owl. And then, somewhere in the distance another owl respond. Back and forth they went until the two of us fell into slumber. My friend, who is Russian, believes that the way one spends their New Year’s Eve is a glimpse of the year to come. So, there I laid next to her, and thought about the high-sighted love of the owl pair and was lifted by the thought of my love to come.
But so it wasn’t. Love did not come for me that year, and love did come for my friend but it was love with a bitter end. It wasn’t a year of high-sighted love. It was a year of things splitting apart, and everything getting very hard. So, when New Year’s Eve came again and The Year of The Owl came to it’s end, I did not look for a new animal. I stopped believing in The Year Of The all together.
Weeks past and grieving the death of destiny, I did not look for a new animal.
And I did not look for a new animal.
But a new animal was looking for me. I knew it when, after moving to Tennessee, I saw something red in a tree. So bright and so saturated the color was, I didn't think it could be natural. But then it moved. And then it flew. And many more I’ve seen since, flittering atop the powdery, white snow.
The cardinal shoved her way into my frozen heart, as much as I didn’t want her there. And asked, what’s the good in living if without hope? Wouldn’t you rather live on fire, even if, at the very least, faith is the wind which stokes that fire to be?
That was how I knew this year would be The Year of The Cardinal, red like blood and fire. Like hope and renewal. The burning then restoring, like the way the Holy Spirit sometimes moves. Sometimes things must break down first, to make way for that which rebuilds. The owl, the harbinger of the cardinal. And The Year of The Cardinal it will be.
Wow, i have chills! So beautifully written Em!
I love the Cardinal for you! He is beautiful and reminds me to be joyful and peaceful! Kind of like you!