The Calm Amidst the Storm

I did a lot of driving this weekend. On Friday night I agreed to be the designated driver for a couple of guys from work. All week long these two guys talked about how they were going to drink so hard, about how they were going to honor the twenty-year olds inside of them with a night of uncontrollable binge drinking. I prepared all week to be the babysitter. It turned out a night of college-esque heroics was not in the cards. The two men I drove around until 1:00am on Friday didn’t binge drink like college students. They did drink. They drank quite a lot, but they didn’t sit at bars and talk about women or take several shots and scream how tough they were. They talked about their kids. They talked about their families. They talked about how children (both of them have two) change the dynamics of life. This wasn’t a, “Man I wish I didn’t have kids, because man I miss being young,” conversation. This was a, “I’m proud of my family. I’m proud of the life I have,” conversation. There was a heavy sense of pride weighing over every word, every story about their children. They told me they couldn’t wait for Kelsey and me to have kids.

In truth, I can’t wait either. Kelsey and I have tried. Had I told you about that blogosphere? I don’t think so. There’s no sense in hiding it now that it’s been said. We’ve had some heartache this year. There have been some pregnancies that haven’t gone as planned. We’ve had the incredible highs of positive pregnancy tests bring on the crushing lows of miscarriages. We’ve had what are supposed to be overwhelming, positive experiences—ultrasounds, follow-up appointments with baby doctors—turned into nervous, dreaded experiences. These experiences, these baby pains, are hard. They take what is supposed to be magic and clutter it with phrases like “chromosomal defects” and “aborted.” They take a nice picnic dinner and wash it away with an unexpected storm.

Going back, I did not drink on Friday because I worked this weekend. The weekends at work have a strange feel to them. The weeks are so busy, so hectic, that no one really appreciates what is being done. No one takes time to talk about and learn about the people with whom they work. No one takes pride in the creation that takes place day in and day out in factories across the world. The building I work in recently installed a lot of new equipment built by a company I will call Borg. Borg has offices all over the world and currently has people from these various offices stationed in our factory. Because of this I found myself having lunch with a man from England (Mike) and a man from Brazil (Alex) yesterday. Mike warmed up mince meat pies for Alex and me to eat. I’d never had a mince meat pie. I’d never really known of them to exist outside of a Dickens’ novel.

The pie conversation led Mike to start talking about his childhood Christmas memories. His mother would bake three mince meat pies each Christmas. While Mike told us Christmas stories, we ate warmed up microwavable pies. They were very good, but he said, “they are nothing like mum’s Christmas pies.” Alex leaned back and started to smile. Alex does not know English that well. He says he’s an English virgin, but he perked up at the word Christmas. He said, “You eat pie in Christmas over there?” This led the three of us, at a desk in the middle of a dark factory in Iowa, to talk about holiday traditions, to talk about family, to talk about pies and sugar and presents. Both of them will be leaving Iowa next week for a two-week return trip home for the holidays. Alex was particularly excited. He hasn’t seen his family in three months.

Sometimes life has these little moments that just happen, and I wonder, “How did I get here? How did I come to share mince meat pies with a British mechanic and a Brazilian electrician?” I don’t fully appreciate all of these moments. I don’t fully appreciate that these employees from Borg are dedicating several weeks and months of their lives to help install equipment for people they don’t know, for people they won’t see again. They do this to support families they rarely see.

I looked at Mike and Alex and watched them get caught up in the whimsical and lonely memories of holidays past and felt their excitement for their impending returns home. I saw that excitement start to overcome the loneliness that hangs over them most times. And I thought about how most of the people I’ve known who spent time overseas were probably a little lonely too, and how they shared that loneliness with other lonely people, and how none of those lonely people probably wanted to talk about it much. My parents live across the street from my in-laws. I talk to my brother and sister and brother-in-law regularly. I don’t really know what it’s like to be away from my family. I know sometimes my wife leaves for the weekend, and I start to miss her. I can’t imagine being away for months, years, time.

While we ate lunch, the weather outside started to turn. It had been raining and cold most of the morning. It started to snow. The wind slowly picked up. It was a normal December day.

The month of December is the only month that still has some magic left in it, no matter your age. As a kid, you sat around a tree each day and anticipate the arrival of a jolly, cookie-eating man. As a teenager, you started to appreciate your family’s holiday traditions. You started to excitedly compare them to other families’ traditions. As a college student, the holidays brought returns home, the comforts of past friends. The month of December is the only month in which we all share our nostalgia, where we all feel like kids. We all think back to a shared excitement, a shared anticipation for school breaks and Christmas treats. December, the holidays, Christmas remind us of warmth, happiness, and nostalgia. There is a peace there, if we look for it.

Last night, Kelsey’s boss hosted a Christmas party. Before Kelsey and I left our house for the Christmas party, we got ready. We asked each other if this sweater looked okay. How is my hair? Do these shoes look stupid? Ugh, I feel fat in these jeans. Is my collar bent funny? I wore a wrinkly, yellow pullover Kelsey found in the basement. Kelsey wore a black tank top and a brown sweater. She made up her hair like a movie star. There are moments in a marriage where you look at your wife and see her for the first time all over again. Last night was one of those times for me. She looked absolutely stunning. I’d never seen her hair that way before. She looked as elegant, as classy, as any movie star from the 1950’s. She was my dark haired Grace Kelly. She had a glow about her. A peace started to grow inside of me that was in direct contrast to the rising winds and whipping snow surrounding our house.

We drove out to the country for the Christmas party. In retrospect, that was probably a bad idea. Every weather indicator pointed towards, “Horrible.” It had been wet all day. The roads iced over as the sun dropped. The snow picked up and fell heavily towards the ground. The winds rose and the snow blew across the roads, reducing visibility to almost zero. The effect of the white-out was particularly jarring in the country, where there were no trees or houses to block and divert the wind from blowing snow all over the road. We lost track of the road. We drove a mere ten miles an hour on a fifty-five mile an hour road. We made it to the party. We stayed for about an hour and a half. Then someone made the mistake of pulling up radar and finding out the storm had gotten much worse and was scheduled to get much worser.

People started to panic. Everyone ran towards the coat room. Everyone started their cars. People must really hate being stranded in the country. We all worked to leave this party against some imaginary weather deadline. We acted as if the skies would open up and dump five feet of powder in the next three minutes. We had to leave right then or else! The storm was bad, but running out of there as fast as possible brought us nothing but heightened nerves and wasted energy. Once in our car, Kelsey and I debated which way to take home—the interstate wherein we risked encountering large semis and daredevil trucks, or the back roads wherein we risked large snow drifts. We opted for the back roads. At first we followed another car, driven by my old fifth grade teacher, Dennis, who is now Kelsey’s colleague (life keeps on moving, you know?). I tried to keep him in my sights. I tried to let him guide me.

The lights in the distance helped bring us calm, but Dennis evidently had more guts or more experience than me, and I eventually lost sight of him. Once his taillights disappeared, our guide was gone. We were entering the unknown by ourselves. I expected Kelsey to get nervous. She does not like being in the car in bad weather, but she stayed calm. We drove in relative quiet, listening to David Bowie’s strange rendition of Little Drummer Boy emanate from the radio. I asked Kelsey how I was driving. Kelsey said, “I feel safe. This storm is bad, but you make me feel safe. You have to be nervous too, but you’re staying calm.”

And what is husbandry really, than trying to make your wife feel safe?

After the weather turned what is normally a fifteen minute uneventful drive into a fifty minute nervous ride, we arrived home. We changed into sweatpants. Kelsey wore familiar sweats and an Iowa State shirt, all while keeping her movie star hair and healthy glow. We cranked the heat. Our only light came from our Christmas tree, the White Christmas movie on our television, and the Christmas lights outside our house. At some point, Kelsey fell asleep on the couch. She started to spread out on the couch, essentially pushing me off of it. This happens. She and Dottie, our dog, have a conspiracy to never allow me on the couch past 8:30 most nights. Dottie sensed Kelsey was out for good, so she jumped on top of Kelsey and squeezed in between Kelsey and the back of the couch and too fell asleep.

I moved over to the nearby loveseat and started to read. My back was to the window. I could feel and hear the wind gaining force outside. It sounded violent, shaking our screen door and getting under the siding. I could see the blowing snow out of the front window, covering the neighborhood. Bing Crosby sang to me on the TV. I put my book (or, more accurately, the e-book I read on my laptop) down and looked around my house. I thought about the conversation from Friday. I thought about how much they talked about their families, and how happy they were. How, in the traditional sense, they’d “made it.” I thought about Alex and Mike and how their loneliness would go away soon. I thought about Kelsey’s and my heartaches and pains and how they were all on the same road that led us there, to that moment. All of a sudden Bing and Rosemary and the rest of the stars on TV started to sing White Christmas.

I like my Christmas songs to be haunting. I prefer the Silent Nights and the Oh Holy Nights versus the Santa Claus is Coming to Towns. The best Christmas songs have melodies that wrap their fingers around your soul and remind you of the past, cause you to reflect on the present, and bring pleasant hopes for the future. White Christmas is one of those songs. We all dreamed of White Christmases growing up. I still dream of White Christmases. I used to dream of spending Christmas mornings with family, warm and safe, opening presents under a tree. Only it wasn’t the presents I dreamed of. It was the feeling. It was the feeling of safety of happiness. Really I dreamed of moments like last night. I dreamed of a life where the sad memories wash away in lieu of happier ones. I dreamed about a life where hope prevails and optimism wins. I dreamed of moments of complete tranquility, moments with an adorable, strange little puppy, moments with a content, beautiful wife, and moments with a feeling of safety and warmth in the midst of a storm.