Dave Sandford, Lake Erie
Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky’s gray arch;
Smiling I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier
This has been a truly severe few weeks. If I thought 2019 was a tough year, it is nowhere near the incredible stress that has manacled almost every day since January.
I came to Wednesday this week, worn to the bone. Incredibly, it is only February. An unbelievable number of deadlines to be met in the coming days, so much work already done, yet seemingly not a dent in that towering mountain before me.
Late last year, heaven had sent me a belated Christmas gift in the sudden transfer of my boss. Life had become increasingly difficult under him. Job change or early retirement not being an option for me, I was glad indeed to see him go. Still, there was no remedy for the anxiety I felt about who would replace my old boss. I couldn’t help but be anxious that it’d be someone worse – based on past experience.
From where I was, looking over the landscape of the coming months, despite my resolve to be brave and not cave in to despair, all I saw then were the endless weave of sand dunes beneath an unrelenting sun.
Then, remembering the sign from the end of January, before daybreak of this 1st Wednesday of February, I went to St. Joseph and laid down my heart before him. I was so tired but there was still so much to do. I wanted to hope for good things, and if it wasn’t the good that I was imagining, I wanted to be brave and strong.
Late that evening, with the primrose yellow evening sun peering determinedly over my shoulder, I received news of our new boss. What little we knew of him offered scant hope. With that last rung broken, I was completely emptied of myself. So, I gave myself up to St Joseph. Please help, I whispered. Boss. Deadlines. The rest of this year. The years left till my retirement. Please help, St. Joseph, I whispered as I rested all my burdens at his feet.
It was night when St Joseph gently slipped my weary heart an unexpected gift. Some weeks before, I had received a beautiful gift from a dear friend, Sue Shanahan, of 2 precious and gorgeously illustrated books written by Susan Branch. I had been slowly working my way through the first book, The Fairy Tale Girl, and I had come to the final few pages. It was winter and in the book, the author had left her home in California for some months of respite from pain and sorrow, on Martha’s Vineyard. She was exchanging grief for uncertainty, yet looking also for hope and peace. I felt my heart go with her on that plane ride from California, knowing what I know now what she hadn’t known then: that her life was about to change forever. That awaiting her was truly the peace and hope she yearned for.
What I hadn’t known was that something was waiting for me too.
At the end of the book, on that final page, were the stirring lines from a poem,
Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky’s gray arch;
Smiling I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.
The words the wind of March sheared through my heart with a suddenness that took my breath away, tumbling a brook of silver~joy into the wearied gullies. The wind of March. My tired spirit was thrust high into the skies of sudden hope. March! The month of spring. Of the Feast of the Annunciation. Of news we tremulously await as a family.
Of St Joseph!
Winds! The one element vested with certain power to still my spirit. No matter how I am feeling, the call of the winds possesses a power only heaven can bestow, to quieten the squalls in my spirit, to raise it in freeing joy. True to form, just the mere sight of the words wind of March, roused my spirit to an anthem of joyful hope.
Something in March
Something in March
Something’s coming in March
my spirit pranced about in giddy glee.
Nothing definitive was revealed to me that Wednesday night. Nothing about my new boss nor his leadership. Nothing of how the months ahead, the years even, are going to be.
And yet,
Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky’s gray arch;
Smiling I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March
spoke a secret to my heart.
And then the folds of my heart closed tight upon that secret, resolutely sealing its knowledge from me, until the time of illumination.
Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky’s gray arch;
Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.
Between the passing and the coming season,
This stormy interlude
Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason
For trustful gratitude.
Blow, then, wild wind! thy roar shall end in singing,
Thy chill in blossoming;
Come, like Bethesda’s troubling angel, bringing
The healing of the Spring.
writingonmyheart 