So typical when I’m making food for friends. Something was off in the oatmeal knots and I didn’t realize it until I tasted one at the luncheon I had for a small group of ladies. Good grief. I’d always loved the sweet honeyed wheaty taste of these favorites. But this day they were bland and I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Until it dawned on me I’d forgotten the salt. The recipe calls for such a small amount; one would never guess it would make all the difference in palatableness. As is true in nearly all baking. My kids are always shocked that we put salt in our sugar cookies. And that we add a little sugar to our spaghetti sauce.
I was listening to a podcast not long ago and she hit on something I’d suspected but thought it was just me being weird. Validating to find out it’s a real thing. Similar to S.A.D., it’s a new issue they’re calling climate change depression that occurs when the weather is unseasonably off. Sort of like when it’s fall in the northern states and still in the 70s and 80s. Like this past Thanksgiving in Montana, completely void of snow and warm enough to go to school without a coat. Just sort of strange and makes us feel a little unsettled. She was noting this as she traveled to work when it should’ve been cold but wasn’t. Then she realized how much better she felt as she noticed the fog rolling in later that morning. It reassured and soothed her. She discovered that many people feel uneasy or out of sorts when the weather doesn’t behave as anticipated. Even if it’s sunny and warm. It seems as though we need regular winter to keep us feeling steady.
I didn’t have anything to compare it to as a kid; but now that I’ve experienced the four seasons, I’d never want to go back to my San Diego upbringing. It was predictably warm and beautiful nearly all the time. An occasional rainy day, early morning coastal fog now and then, but generally sunny and pleasant. People who visit always come back to Montana and ask why on earth I ever left. And why I don’t want to go back. How do I explain (when it’s -17 and we’re breaking snowfall records from 40 years ago) that I prefer a little snow and a few chilly days?
I simply can’t fathom an October afternoon watching cross country without colorful leaves fluttering from the trees, creating a crunchy footpath for the kids. I can’t imagine Christmas carols and stockings without snow as a backdrop. Or having a fireplace and woodpile just for looks without ever really needing to use any of it.
Just like my podcast friend was explaining, just like my rolls sans salt, I think we inherently need—and even crave—a little opposition to appreciate the sweetness, the joy of a warm day, the good. This is a hard sell, and I don’t know that our younger friends can really grasp this concept; but the older I get the better I understand this principle I first learned years and years ago as a teenager:
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.
...and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good....for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet.
This has helped me so much over the years as I’ve dealt with adversity. I look at as a way to appreciate the good that will inevitably come again. We may not fully enjoy our health, our families, our freedoms, our jobs, or our everyday lives until they’re interrupted or compromised. And following a hiccup or upset of whatever variety, we somehow become more grateful for regular life, the good that we took for granted before.
It’s not until I recovered from a week of stomach sickness that I almost cherished cooking and cleaning for my family. It took awhile to feel back to normal after an emergency c-section with my fifth child, and I was so grateful to be able to mop the floor and clean the bathroom without hurting and to be able to drive and pick up my two-year-old again. Holding each other and crying the night we found out I had cancer only made us feel our love more intensely than ever before. Watching my little daughter choke one normal day at lunch made me realize how close we can come to losing each other. There is nothing better than an understanding conversation with a friend clearing up a miscommunication; my love for her soars and I’m almost grateful for that chance to see how deep our friendship really is. I’m so proud of my sons and where they are, but I don’t know that I’d feel as tender about it all if we hadn’t had our struggles along the way. I don’t know if I’d appreciate a dinner I’d made for guests that came together just the way I’d envisioned if I hadn’t burned a few things and made a million flops over the years.
It’s the salt that enhances the sweet. It’s the opposition in everyday life that really brings us joy. It’s not a forecast of cloudless, sunshiny days. It’s a little rain, a disagreement with a spouse, a hectic morning, a near-miss on the icy roads, a question that kind of shakes you, an unsettling diagnosis, a text that doesn’t sit quite right. And it’s the homecoming and reunion over a pot of soup later that day. A clarifying discussion with a daughter and a long hug. The realization that Someone was watching over you on your drive home. The confirmation that you and your husband really are still in love even after a long stretch of hard days or even years. These are the sweet moments we may overlook if they were like paper hearts simply strung together in a festive pennant. Not that we don’t hope for our projects, our days, our families, our health, our lives to be free from obstacles and pain. We cut out our paper hearts, we lay them out to hang just so, we hope things will turn out ok. That’s only natural.
And yet I’ve felt it myself. When I notice skies have been a little too blue, that the sun in my life has been out longer than normal, when summer’s been going on for awhile, I start checking the weather for an upcoming rain shower. I know from experience we’re due for some kind of change, I expect it, and in a weird way, I’m ok with it. Before long, a kid will confide in us. We’ll feel an urge to move. A vehicle will break down. Money will feel tighter than usual. One of us will get a new assignment. A kid will leave us. A family member will have a tragedy. A dog will need to be put down. Or we’ll get a new one. An appliance will quit working. One of the kids will get a boyfriend or girlfriend. The water heater will go out. We’ll realize one of the kids is struggling with friends or school and we had no idea. A misunderstanding with a friend comes out of nowhere. It’s almost comforting to confront difficulty. It makes me feel like we’re really living, that we’re getting a full day out of our tickets, like we're strong enough to handle a little test. Like a snowless Thanksgiving in Montana, as much as we enjoyed the warm temperatures, it was a little unsettling, things feel just a little too good to be true when there isn't a little crispness in the air come October or a snag or bump to work through after a period of relative calm.
And maybe I not only endure—but on some level welcome—these frosty wintry days because they help me appreciate the return of grass and buds all the more. I honestly look forward to the brisk fall mornings that morph into frigid icy darkness for a spell. And though I can’t honestly say that I’d choose to go through hard times as a family, I think we can all admit they help us see more clearly the joy of everyday life. Just as we contemplate spring, I know from experience that these difficult, sometimes intense and seemingly never-ending seasons of our lives will strengthen us and our relationships. Which is why I’ve learned to not wish the challenges and vicissitudes of life, the rainy--even frosty—days, the opposition, away. I’ve lived long enough and through enough seasons to know the warm days of summer will come again.
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