christmas nougats

as usual, i'm behind the times. it's now the end of march, and i'm just now cracking open a bag of what used to be my all time favorite holiday candy, the minty christmas nougats by brachs. if you don't mind having sugary candy stuck in your teeth for a while after eating them, the peppermint taste is quite strong. again, if you like peppermint...

***

it's been nearly a year since dan started his new job. i am very, very proud of him. when i think of this pride, i have a hard time not weeping, so thankful am i. dan made a decision, at some point, to live, to try, to keep trying. i have great respect for this courage of his, the sheer tenacity of being on the bottom and crawling back up.

i think of organisms living deep in the ocean, swimming slow to the top, breaking the meniscus of water, and gulping in air.

***

in so many ways i feel that i am behind. i am late. i am slow. when i was a kid i got the turtle award for being slow. it was second grade and at the end of the year we had a picnic in a park. under the pavilion, with the taste of cheap hot dog and orange drink from mcdonalds lingering in my mouth, my hands sticky, i remember that green award. other kids got awards for being smart, or speedy, whatever. i got the turtle award.

i guess i think of it with bitterness--why would you reward someone for being slow? but then again i review in my mind the story of the tortoise and the hare--slow and steady wins the race.

my middle sister married three years ago this fall. i hear conflicting reports about how the tedium of every day life and taken for granted-ness is wearing on their union. am i glad that i have not yet made an honest man of dan? i don't know. perhaps it is fate, kismet, what have you, that we did not marry all those years ago when we first spoke of it. perhaps we needed to go through and experience what we did, find our separate selves and the full appreciation for what we have together. it is difficult to see that, when you are living in that moment.

***

with time comes perspective, objectivity even when you are reviewing your self, or at least a semblance of objectivity. yes, i may be slow. and life may not be the headlong race that i often feel i am just watching roll by me, quick and flashy. maybe i'm just running in a different race. the marathon, not the 100 meter dash.

i eat another red striped white nougat, take a long look at the mashed up green pine tree in the middle. the wrappers are a little crisp; i'm sure that they are not meant to wait four months before being used and recycled. sometimes i suppose that me being behind is unhealthy. then again, is it so horrible to be reminded of snow and wind chills and warm blankets, when the sky is low and gray and damp april is in your bones?

i know that dan gets frustrated with me because of the speed at which i manuever through life and its varied obstacles. i know that i get frustrated, with my self and my own meandering. but having been to the points that i have--watching dan grasp at life and find a hold, remembering my own struggles, and contemplating that the struggle in life is constant--at those points and at the ones i can imagine occuring--i am glad that i move slowly through the world.

the earth itself is slow--a creature out of sorts with time. it slumbers for a few months, and upon waking, takes its time to rinse sleep from its eyes. it'll rain for a few more weeks, before blooming hot and humid into the next season. probably by then i'll have eaten the rest of my leftover mints.