temporary darkness

Tonight, riding home, I found a temporary darkness.  The city is "beautifying" the 10th Street corridor between Woodruff and Rural.  They have bumped out the curbs and this spring will probably see some flowers planted there in the new patches that will be green space.  I bet Keep Indianapolis Beautiful will even plant some of their yellow daffodils.  The daylight in the spring will last a bit longer and dawn a bit earlier.  But, for now, the darkness.  The installation of new street lights has deemed it necessary to shut off the power to that little beautified corridor for a while.  And each night that I ride that tiny tunnel of darkness, I look up to the heavens, and I see stars; the original street lights.

Full Circle into Winter

It was just over a year ago that my family relinquished the automobile in favor of the bicycle lifestyle.  And this past year has been one of the greatest for our family.  We have reached a whole new level of financial self-reliance as we have chipped away at our cost of living until we could comfortably live on a Starbucks wages.  We've eaten well, not had any of our utilities shut off, and kept our home.  Wahoo!  I feel like we've been through some kind of boot camp for escaping the "American Dream" (read that to mean attempting fulfillment through materialism and consumption) and crash landed into minimalism, self-reliance, sustainability, and freedom.  Wait, wasn't that just a checklist for the original American Dream?  Well, who cares what kind of dream it is; I'm just glad to be living a dream at all.
This past year has been one full of gifts.  Some were the kind of gifts that your Self (big S) gives to your self (small s).  Like realizing that you are physically strong after a lifetime of thinking you were the type to easily bruise and need help both lifting something heavy and getting something off the top shelf of any cabinet.  Some of the gifts were the kind you were born with and didn't know were anything special at all until other people noticed and then convinced you that you really did have a special knack for something that not everyone has.  Other gifts were less metaphorical and more literal; like the totally awesome bicycle trailer that one of my daily customers at Starbucks gave to our family.  The new trailer was a gigantic upgrade from our old one and with a little mending on my part recently, will likely last us as long as Isa can fit inside it (perhaps one more winter?).  All these gifts have made our year more than just simple survival -- these gifts were the ways we experienced a great abundance during what might be called a lean season.
Winter, I believe, was generally considered a lean season.  Not much can grow during this time of year in many climates.  Of course there is the harvest time feast of Thanksgiving and the more wintery feast of the Solstice, or Christmas, or Hanukkah or what have you.  But then, modern giant 24 hour grocery stores notwithstanding, many people lived for the rest of this lean season on what they had canned and stored from the previous growing season.  And in a way, we have seemed to survive this past year on the Fruits of the Spirit that we had canned and stored.  We relied heavily on forbearance, for example to keep our home (ha ha!).  But really, though, self-control has been a lesson of this past year; as has kindness.  Love and joy are fruits that kept ripening for us again and again, even after the first frost.   Old friends have come back into our lives.  New ways of doing things we had done before have surprised and delighted us.  The blessings we have accepted as our own continue to bloom and grow.  I look ahead to our coming year and excitement swells in my heart for the fun and beauty we might discover there.
And really, I just sat down to blog about how much I love to bike in the snow.  But I guess I did that last year.  :)