A Frozen Maine New Year’s Day

I went out this morning, bundled against the 17 degree weather and armed with a borrowed camera to take a few photos of New Year’s Day in Maine for a post on Conde Nast Traveler that should be up later today. I’ll admit I wasn’t terribly excited about my morning project. The sun was out, but the wind chill made the temperature drop to a real feel of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn’t really conducive to a photo walk where you need at least a few functioning fingers. We also don’t have any snow, so the beautiful winter wonderland Maine I was hoping to show the world was looking a little brown and dull.

But I bundled up in my mom’s puffer coat (because nothing I brought can really cope with 5 degrees) and headed off in the younger of the old Volvos to find something picturesque that would do Maine justice in a round-up of New Year’s Day around the world. I found some cows having breakfast, and a flock of turkeys munching in a nearby field. I drove past some crazy ice fishermen who had managed to survive their questionable decision to drill holes in ice that totally isn’t thick enough way too close to open water.

I was headed home, figuring I had enough to work with, when I noticed a stream running under the road from one side to the other. I pulled over and parked the car. I walked back along the road, camera in hand. From the road, I could see the stream was bigger than I had initially thought, flanked on either side with frozen chunks of ice. Perfect, I thought, this will be much more picturesque than the turkeys.

So I crunch, crunch, crunched my way along the stream, holding branches back as I picked my way along the frozen oak leaves. As I got further along the stream, I realized that barely twenty yards away was a full fledged waterfall. Waterfalls are beautiful any time of the year. Surprise waterfalls are more fun. But I’ll bet surprise waterfalls in below zero weather win the waterfall prize. Big mounds of ice were freezing along both sides, creating the illusion of snow. The drips were forming into stalactite-looking icicles and snowflake-looking crystals in every pool and puddle. 

A few weeks ago I was so excited about the prospect of a new year starting. Before Christmas, I was already starting to think about what I would do with the clean slate and the extra time the holidays were taking up. I wanted to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it felt a little like everything was on hold until they passed – there was exactly enough time for what needed to be done, but no extra room for the dreaming and planning of things to come. In addition to the excitement of the holidays, I was physically buzzing at the excitement of a new year beginning, of the sheer hope those fresh chances bring.

But at some point over the last few weeks, that spirit of excitement for the beginning of 2015 disappeared. We had a wonderful holiday, full of laughter and chats and warmth with my family. But here and there, I found an underlying heaviness to it. Sickness and injury and a few sadnesses among our ever-growing extended family made it feel as if the holiday cheer was under fire, like we were all holding it up with all our strength. For the last few days, I’ve felt worn, and when I woke up this morning on the first day of 2015 I just felt worried. Worried that all those projects and goals and clean slate resolutions I was so looking forward to starting today just wouldn’t work. I was worried that my own brute strength couldn’t pull off my ideas and improvements, and what if I was just setting myself up for disappointment? 

So I suppose that was the underlying problem my mind was chewing on when I headed out this morning, camera in hand. And when I happened upon my surprise freezing waterfall, it cracked the shell of worry that had been building over the last few weeks of worrying about my family that was threatening to sink its tentacles into 2015. With the sparkling sunlight and spraying, splashing mist, the worries shattered.

My surprise freezing waterfall was a message, it was God’s way of saying to me, Look what I did! I made this amazing, intricate, awe-inspiring thing! Don’t you worry, we’re going to do those amazing things on your list. You still get to be filled with that big, buzzing excitement of hope.

I believe strongly (and rationally) that worry does very little to help anything, I’m a problem-solver and I’m armed with lists! But it’s scary how pervasive a feeling worry can be, and how heavily it can weigh on your spirit, sinking its tentacles into whatever it can find and creating pockets of doubt. Worry will probably always be there, and as our family grows, the problems will sometimes seem to multiply. But today I was reminded (for me it was by the God I believe in, but for you it might come from nature or the universe, or even from me right now!) that we can’t allow the worry to overshadow the rest of our lives, and that the big, buzzing hope of starting a fresh new year is still very much there and ready for the lists. I returned to the house lighter and ready for the lists, with freezing fingers that tingled as they thawed. Tomorrow, there will be resolutions and lists and clean slates. Tonight, I am thankful to be finishing the first day of 2015 with that buzzing excitement of hopefulness again. 2015 is going to be big and bright, and I hope you and yours are filled with that incredible spirit of hope that a new year (and a surprise freezing waterfall) brings. xx