The Watcher in the Window– At West End Gallery
I scare myself and I don’t mean lightly
I scare myself it can get frightening
I scare myself to think what I could do
I scare myself it’s some kind of voodoo
—I Scare Myself, Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks (1972)
Icy cold this morning. -1° with a wind chill of somewhere around -14°.
The big news around here is the coming storm with an expected snowfall of 12 to 18 inches. This has people all in a fearful tizzy. The supermarkets were packed yesterday as people rushed to stock up.
There was a sense of dread in the air so thick that created its own storm front. I would like to think I am immune to it, that I will just shrug it off.
Whatcha gonna do? It is winter, after all, and if memory doesn’t fail me, we have had many bigger storms in the past. Seems like in those times I had a much more take-it-as-it-comes attitude. Today I find myself thinking about what needs to be done so that we are prepared and dreading the hours on the tractor it will take to clear our long driveways (a little over 1/4 mile in all) in supercold temps.
Maybe that is simply a product of aging, of knowing that I am dealing with much more limited energy resources at this moment. Definitely much less than twenty or thirty years ago. I feel tired a lot more since I began taking the meds and the cold seems to bite a bit more.
But I still have a bit of that take-it-as-it-comes in me, thank god, and sometimes still find myself laughing at the worries I feel from things like these storms. It’s a pain in the butt and I would obviously rather be doing something else than plowing or shoveling and shivering, but it’s part of the deal. I remind myself this when I find myself fretting over this kind of stuff, that just being able to do the things needed to survive the little perils that pop up in this world is actually a privilege. A pleasure, in fact. Just part of being alive. Much better than the alternative.
It makes me stop scaring myself.
There are much more awful and dangerous things and people out there to fear than a little snow and subzero temperatures.
Now, I just have to convince myself that facing those other things is also a privilege and a pleasure.
Here’s a song, I Scare Myself, from Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks from his album Striking It Rich. I bought this album soon after it came out in 1972 and sometimes even now find myself absent-mindedly singing bits and pieces of the songs from it. This is one that often pops to mind. Maybe it serves as an unconscious reminder to stop scaring myself?
I don’t know. Why doesn’t really matter. I just enjoy revisiting the song.
Redtree Times 