I’m sitting on an old wooden pew, at a notched and weathered table. I’m by a window, lucky - overlooking a snowy downtown street. It’s snowing, again and I feel a sigh coming on. Snow is not something that usually depresses me, but this year, a combination of sickness, a busy toddler stuck indoors and more gray days than usual have made me grumble some about winter weather.
The pub in which I sit used to be the Catholic school, the same one which my daughter now attends, relocated to the other side of town. There’s an air about this pub which I love, a sense of remembering, of old things made new. I like the old signs and Irish music over staticky speakers and the photos of starched young people staring out of grayscale onto our warm wood-toned here-and-now. Depicted are rugby teams and elk hunts and polo clubs and nuns with fishing poles; there are bad hair cuts and pretty young girls and mustachioed baseball players in these photos. People just like you and I, who, many years ago, were just as annoyed with long winters and the ennui of weekdays as I am now.
I’m drinking a hot toddy, because I was going to go to a coffee shop but I hate the rickety tables and bright lights and clatter of coming and going. Pubs are much more ready for the thoughtful, lengthy work of the interior. There are no emails getting answered in pubs. There’s no aimless scrolling. If there’s work being done, it’s long work, the kind of thing which requires a whiskey, the kind that is excavated, not pinged. My grandma loved toddies and Irish coffee, and she would’ve loved places like this. She ordered one, served in an elegant feminine glass coffee cup, at the end of many dinners. I made her some in the years I lived with her, when she complained of the misty chill coming in the back door and I said “whiskey’ll fix ya” and she would chuckle and sip and sigh with gladness.
Spring is slow to come, as it always is, and I find myself antsy. I am working on a new writing project. I admit that I am writing it with some amount of… well, fine. I’m writing in fear and trembling.
Anyone who makes something, makes her own chance to be criticized, and I have been criticized. I am both grateful and gun-shy.
It is unpleasant to be told you’re wrong, that you need to improve, that you should’ve done different. It’s something my grandmother said to me, it’s something we often say to those we love in an attempt to help. I’m sure it echoes through this old school turned pub, a place where right and wrong have been stringently held to.
Like winter, the others’ opinions fall on the just and unjust. Like winter, it makes the full rivers of summer and the grass of spring possible; like winter, it reveals the places I am lazy or imprecise, too cautious or too precious.
But, I’m human and the knowledge that others are right, that I am neither perfect nor above criticism does not make it any easier to take. But what can I do? I’m certainly not quitting. I am not dissuaded, nor am I uncertain of my ability to use the ice and cold of external conditions to grow and get better. Are you following my analogy or is this useful only in my own rattling brain-box?
Honestly - I just want someone to say - you are going the right way, this is good, you are doing right.
But then again, the snow says no such thing. It reconciles to no one. It offers no grace to cold hands or nervous drivers. It piles on my horse’s backs and my windshield, it makes tree branches break with the weight of it, and my boots hang heavy with its deep wetness. It piles outside my door no matter how I feel about it, it comes down with gusto whether it is welcomed or not.
It makes me tougher, a better driver and a hardier soul. It reminds me of the truth of the world - that for all of my feelings there is work to be done, that every hour spent shoveling oneself out is an hour given to the river, an hour aiding a strong back, an hour of summer pastures and new growth. For this I am grateful. I am grateful to make something which merits critique, glad to live in a world worthy of water.
A quick plug…
A couple of months ago, I was on the utterly joyful Career Introvert podcast and I forgot to tell you about it. Give it a listen, here.
You are going the right way, this is good, you are doing right.
Thank you (as always) for your wisdom and guidance.
I love what you say about pubs vs. coffee shops and the kind of work that gets done in each. I am always looking for new places to write...and that hot toddy looks good! You are going the right way. There is strength in vulnerability. Create away!