MidWinter's Greeting

On a Peaceful, Snowy Evening

Linda J Sack

Jan 13, 2025

January 13, 2025

1×

0:00

-18:59

Dear You,

If you knew how many letters I have started to you and not finished, you would laugh. There is a backlog of beginnings in my Substack dashboard. I’ve thought of perhaps including them as “parts,” in case there are some gems in there for you. I might just do that with some links, if you are curious.

We writers understand that we rarely know when our words alight with your souls. There are times I finish a letter and think, “Okay, this is a good one. Some of my best writing.” And it falls flat on the proverbial ears of my readers, or at least evokes little response. Then, I receive a direct message from a reader about how my writing connected with them, maybe even moved them, in response to a missive that felt woefully flawed to me.

But here I am tonight, on a “snow night,” when the streets of Detroit are mostly quiet, layering hour after hour with downy snow. The winter weather advisory went into effect several hours ago. Ruby and I didn’t miss our window of wonder, getting out for a lovely walk in this fantastic show of magic in our adjoining walking neighborhood of quaint homes, some still twinkling with baubles and fairy lights from Christmastime.

Blue dusk now falls over the city east of Woodward Avenue, and I’m nestled in for the evening.

January Crash & Fires

The first week in January found me wiped out from the Christmas season, and a bit under the weather. I find I need it to be quiet after the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and the good news is, so does most everyone else. It’s the beginning of hibernation season for us northern hemispheric humans, after Christmas. Because during, we are still packing our cheeks like chipmunks, as if we’re going underground and need enough stuffing to sustain us for a while. Do you find this to be true for you?

Mom has been fighting an infection as well as I, and so our energies have been directed toward visiting medical experts and attempting to solve health mysteries. Tonight, after a hard week’s work, it feels so good to settle in to the cozy of this hush that a good snowfall brings.

As I write this, across the country, another type of fluffy white flakes cover the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. There is no cozy to be found. It is elusive. Ten thousand structures, mostly residential, went up in flames in the wildfires last week, leaving tens of thousands unhoused. A hollow sense of shock holds those affected in it’s grip. Elderly who expected to die in their beautiful homes, children who just want their blankets and stuffies, those who suffer mental or physical illness who are desperate for a quiet, safe space to rest, pets who can’t make sense of any of it—their hearts are all yearning for the familiar, the cozy, for a home that no longer exists.

We can send support and tangible love to our suffering neighbors. A gifted therapist and wise, caring human I follow closely on social media (and podcasts) lost his home. See his video John Kim, the "Angry Therapist"—John Kim and his wife, Vanessa, set up a GoFundMe fundraiser to help their neighbors. Their neighborhood was razed. I trust John and his wife to steward this fund well and get practical help into the hands of those who need it most. Here is the link: GoFundMe for Altadena Fires

So many other non-profit organizations have also mobilized, so if you want to support them, Google disaster relief Los Angeles wildfires.

Thanks for reading Excerpts from Wonderworld! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Instructive Dreams

I read this week about an inquisitive practice writer Dana Levin describes in the postscript of one of her lovely poems. “Sometimes, as I fall asleep, I ask for an instructive dream; and sometimes my psyche provides.”

I love that idea. Clarity coming through dreams and upon waking—sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

2024 was a jumble of chaos for me: family illness crises, two floods, and months of displacement. I felt like Providence took me in her cupped hands, shook me around for a while, and then set me down, saying “Find your way!”

I’m still tippy and dizzy from the ride.

As a result, 2025 finds me nesting in my new home and resting for a while as the spinning stops.

As I tossed and turned in yesterday’s nascent hours, I found myself sort of yearning for answers in my half-sleep state. For “how” to fully recover and how to find my way forward in this new year. Part dreaming, part waking, the beta waves in my brain were at work receiving instructions.

In my dream, I was flailing around in the dark trying to paddle through noisy, choppy waves in a canal. It was clear to me the dark waters were the stressors in my brain: concerns about the world’s catastrophes and traumatized victims; worries about my Mom, myself and our futures; fears that it’s all too much for my sometimes tumultuous brain and soul.

Wordless dialog ensued, and a question wooshed back and forth inside me: “What do I need to do to manage and to stay alive through this?” On a basic level, I was asking for life instructions, searching, in that fever-dream desperation, for what I needed to do to make sense of my mind’s overwhelm and my life’s current state. “What do I need to DO?”

Thoughts, proposed solutions, and figurings came and went. My brain searched, sorted and shuffled the proposed ideas, tossing some out like rough drafts. The feeling of being tossed in loud, rushing waters continued as the undercurrent of this dream.

The narrowing down experience with clear instructions came just before I awoke. It was far simpler than I was thinking it had to be.

In obvious order, this is what I need to do:

Breathe.
In
Out
In
Out
In
Out
In
Out

Simple.

In my twilight state, the instruction seemed like an enormously relieving revelation. Wow. That’s it! Breathe. This is what I came to, after hours of flailing around.

The second instruction was just as simple:

Pray.
Not just conversing with a Higher Power I think of as Love with a capital L (you know, “God is Love”) and Life, (as in that power that brings Life, gives Life, sustains Life.) Not just prayers asking for help, like interventions for myself or others. Instead, this instruction seemed to be a type of melding prayer between me and this Love, Life/God that I feel connected to. A type of visioning and building together of a clear idea. For example, an imagining of my Mom up and moving about steadily. A view of Ruby comfortably playing with a new furry friend in our new neighborhood.

I don’t fully know what number two instruction is all about yet, but I’m thrilled to have received something clear, seeing as my mind and soul were so burdened when I went to sleep the night before. I’m letting that sink in to my soul, with hope there will be more clarity in these lovely, quiet days of winter.

Sick Day Reset

Have you ever noticed how the human body has a way of demanding rest when it’s needed? This week, when my brain seemed to still be stuck on the gerbil wheel of holiday intensity and I couldn’t shift gears into the necessary quiet of January, my body revolted.

I started off the new year with a brilliant journaling challenge, and I think that action is what threw the proverbial spanner in the works. The Isolation Journal’s New Year's Journaling Challenge provides the perfect mental reset with which to ease into 2025. It’s not too late to do it—I’m still in process with it.

I really do thank God for Suleika Jaouad. Her writing, life and community building work has been a lifeline to me. Her 2025 journaling prompts seemed to dislodge me from the crazy that was 2024.

But, I could not get my body to stop and get quiet.

So it said, “Enough! Since you’re attached to that gerbil wheel, I’ll present you with some annoying symptoms you won’t be able to ignore and you’ll have to fall off!”

That’s exactly what happened. Mild symptoms hit before New Year’s, but I was so busy spinning I ignored them at first. Once in January, they accomplished their mission and successfully knocked me off the wheel. I was forced to rest.

In the falling off, I received the gift of facing some lifestyle changes I need to make. So today was my first day in who knows how long without caffeine and sweets. No, I’m not in withdrawals at all….

Nourishment for the Lazy Cook

Thanks to a gift card I received from my dear Mom, I was able to fill my refrigerator with fresh produce (as fresh as you can get during Michigan winter) from a great little urban market nearby. What a great gift idea! Thanks, Mom, and brother for facilitating!

These glorious vegetables inspired me to make a soup that tastes even better than candy and cookies! Every spoonful feels like a bite of health! It’s so unbelievably good, I’m sipping the savory broth down like a tonic, relishing each tasty collard leaf and every chunky potatoey, carrotty, celery-ey bite.

If your’e impressed that I make soup, hold on. I’m the laziest cook. I literally take a tray to my living room couch with washed veggies, a cutting board, a large bowl and a container for scraps. I flip on a film for company—usually a British mystery—and I chop away. I like chunky soups, where I can bite in and taste the good nutrients, so there’s no fancy approach.

I have gotten a couple of tips from better cooks than me. One is sauteeing the chopped garlic and onion in a bit of olive oil before putting it in the soup pot. You can include the celery as well. That carmelized flavoring really enriches the broth. I throw in seasonings like salt and pepper, bay leaves—maybe I try something new with it each time. The other secret is hot sauce. A few dashes of Tabasco warms up the flavor really nicely. You can use a vegetable broth, but if I don’t have it on hand, I filter a batch of good ol’ H20.

The rest is pure “cut and dump.” A small bag of little gold potatoes, bunches of organic carrots and collard greens, a few big celery stalks, and a can of diced tomatoes. My sister makes delicious Tuscan soup similarly and adds in fennel seeds, so they’re on my shopping list for next time.

A cup of my chunky vegetable soup, in a soup cup made by my dear friend, June Wink. Cozy, well-loved blanket made by my beautiful niece, Evan, and a sampler table, crafted in 1890 by my great grandfather, August C. Sack, who was a talented master carpenter.

I keep the big pot of soup in the refrigerator and as I make my way through it, I just keep adding veggies and liquid. I love to keep soup on the stove all through the winter, sampling different vegetables, herbs and spices. And I just keep dumping them in, and see how they meld with the last batch. It’s been a really easy cooking experience that makes me feel much healthier. Comfort food for sure.

What Are Your Instructions?

Aww, well, how are you doing? How do you feel after reading this, or listening? Any soup ideas you want to drop in the comments?

Excerpts from Wonderworld