grace and winter

The glare of the sun bounces off chairs and snow enough to make me squint. A tall cup of decaf coffee has grown cold to my left; a microwave stares at me from five feet further. After laboring over business plans involving too many details for a macro-thinker, the next task involves writing promotional text for a book refuting bestselling books written by atheists calling the very existence of God foolish.

Perhaps decaf wasn’t the proper choice, but the jungle bacteria forced me to temporarily give up caffeine, and I’m thinking of sticking to it. There is nothing grandiose to say here, but in this coffee shop, it’s a refreshing view of life as it really is: Women with drooling babies, an old man with steaming take-out food and a small cup of coffee smiling at said babies, office professionals staring at computer screens, young lovers learning in toward each other, sharing headphones.

The south room is full of smoke and hearts taped to windows, simultaneously celebrating St. Valentine’s Day and this shops’ 15^th anniversary. Life inside a house all day laboring over a laptop is not life as it is intended, but today’s planning involves a collaborative effort to escape the clutches of the work-from-home blessing and curse. A friend was surprised to hear I’m up before 8 a.m.

Misinformation and assumptions abound about the nature of “freedom.”

People are rather sad during this month of February; the weather seems to be taking out its vengeance on our people, bringing sickness and delaying the fast-approaching spring, hoping to hold it back.

In some ways I feel trapped by the weather, growing tired of not being able to go anywhere without having an accomplice to push the car out of the one-way street ditches, where effective plowing is impossible and bald tires manufacture icy holes, successfully nabbing three cars to date, like a frozen Venus fly trap that eats cars.

Who knows what the Groundhog did this year, but the sun has shone its face today, an unexpected surprise from the never-ending gray. This morning I awoke and put on snow pants, a heavy jacket and gloves, and a blue hat my parents bought me from Norway. This is good, as I didn’t even go outside once on Sunday, but it still didn’t persuade me that a shower was necessary today. The house is too cold for sweat.

While listening to Genesis (the book), I shoveled and added salt to our dangerous steps that tackled my roommate yesterday morning. Then I walked snowy streets to the park while the sun made itself known to the trees and I. A shaggy dog met me in the middle of the street, walking clumsily until its owner barged out her front door calling its name.

In the park, standing in two feet of frozen white, beauty was found in the very snow that has caused so many troubles and cancellations. On the walk to the shop this afternoon, I listened to “Grace,” a U2 song I recently discovered (it was released in 2000):

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that
Changed the world

And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness
In everything

Grace
She's got the walk
Not on a wrapper on chalk
She's got the time to talk

She travels outside
Of karma, karma
She travels outside
Of karma

When she goes to work
You can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips
Between her fingertips

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hers
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stains

Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness
In everything