Rocks and Roots

What rocks and roots will you discover this season? Jane Rubietta shares what she’s learning.

Elisa

Rocks and Roots

By Jane Rubietta

Holidays can carry high highs and often deliver low-end takeaway. Nothing “Hallmark” about it, for many. Although, we have the party horns and the streamers and the fake New Year tiara, at least on mental display. Where did the love, celebrations, look-at-how-we’ve- weathered-another-year kudos go?

Life just keeps “life-ing.” And people keep … people-ing. We are so, well, human. Hurts bubble, pain hangs around like some uninvited guest we try to ignore. Failure leans over us like the ghost of Christmas past. Then the cleanup crew (that’s me, that’s you) shovels and sweeps and stashes and stores. We file the almost-menu plan, those didn’t-quite-happen party notes, the still-boxed decorations. Whether the menus and parties actually occurred or not, they’re part of the expectations we easily slip into, a nice coat that fits but is absolutely not cozy or comforting.

Whew. Done. Dust off your hands, shake it all off.

And then we plunge into the gasping blank new calendar hanging on the wall of our soul. Ever say this to yourself? “C’mon, buck up, pull yourself together, get your life on track, do something please, energize, power up. You got this. This is your year.”

Maybe this isn’t the season to scrape the landscape clear and start over with a thousand “New Start New Me” goals. Or resolutions. Maybe January is a winter-rooting month, where we get to root around in the inner soil and study the rocks and roots (and, okay, the worms and other necessary crawly things) we find. Mud pies for adults!

Naming rocks and roots is vital to our sense of being. A significant trauma anniversary for me happens as the calendar flips. In observance one year, with two of our boys, we each picked flower bunches we liked from bins at the grocery. We created a few different arrangements, but we each kept a few stalks for ourselves.

We walked to the accident scene, and waited in silent acceptance together. Pain happened here, life changed here. I ripped the petals off one of the flowers, and named something difficult I wanted to acknowledge. For instance, “On this corner, I was broken.” Then I threw the petals in the air, releasing them to the wind and snow. We named hard feelings, threw petals, wept. And then we named people who helped, or goodness that arrived after that corner. “The firemen who saved my life.” Petals of gratitude flew. “The ER doctor.” “I got my mom back.”

Some of the rooting in the soil of our souls in this new year may include petals to pull, or rocks to pitch into a stream (like, anger; I drowned that rock one year). Or a bulb that blooms in summer (I didn’t expect new friends, but look!).

This isn’t some brutally painful inventory. Archeologists use gentle brushes to discover artifacts—and artifacts tell stories. Kindness, tender awareness, even laughter are great tools in a dig. This month isn’t about getting kudos for the new buff body, thanks to new-goal discipline. Naw. It’s so much kinder than that.

Dig a rock. Study it, learn its story, sit on it and use it for landscaping. Or get rid of it. And when you find that bulb, love on it.

Honor and protect your soul-travel and travails.

All in all, it will be a very good year. Or, a good start to your day. Or, a good minute.

And that is good enough.

Now look in the mirror and say, “Well done, you. I see you, it was a hard year, here you are. Well done.”

Jane Rubietta lives and writes and adventures from the Windy City, aka Chicago. Her latest novel, The Commuter, is now available. With humor and depth, Jane speaks internationally, loves to play with words, loves people, doesn’t love goals in January, and actually loves rooting about in the dirt. Find her and her 22 books at JaneRubietta.com, and on social media.