DECEMBER

On an otherwise cloud-covered morning in December, the sun peeps out.

Its presence is like a festive occasion and always means a stand at the window to soak up the light. Or I drop whatever I’m doing, run outside, and immerse myself in the one thing that erases the monotony of grey. It’s a warmth you can’t pass up. It spills through the branches of a huge, bare, Bigleaf maple; the centerpiece of the property we live on. And it delivers.

It always delivers.

It delivers so much I don’t want to go back inside. A few of my neighbors make cameo appearances, coming outside to stand on the pathway beneath the rays of light. Only one stays as long as I do. She peers up at the sun with one hand shielding her eyes, turns to me—but not completely so as not to exclude the sun from her line of vision—and says, “I love this time of year.”

I know she thinks of winter as “cozy” and “peaceful,” but I don’t share her enthusiasm for it. The sun serves my DNA. I smile every time it comes out. Last week the temperatures were brutal. When she went for her walk in freezing temps, I said that sounded better than going to the gym, but I knew I wasn’t going to follow through. I waved from my little balcony and scooted back inside. She got what she wanted and so did I. I remember literally jumping up and down with relief, I was so happy to be back indoors. Always in pursuit of the warmest spot in the house, or on the planet, I don’t even try to pretend I like our winters. The way I see it, you are a good Northwest person whether you like gray-rainy-windy-relentless-chilly-cold or not.

Luckly before long, the sun will give way to spring.

It always delivers the next season, too.

This all makes me think of how certain things—sunlight, seasons, gardens, certain county fair rides like roller coasters—are really much more than a good comparison to life, they are life. For example: Life really is like a rose: beautiful and prickly. I love this similarity. But no matter how beautiful, you still have to get out your shears and prune them back. And this: December is the last month of the year, yes, but I can hardly believe it’s the last new writing for this book.

I can’t believe it.

Because this means I’m between again.

Between this book and the next.

And I have trouble with this interlude. Until now, this book has been in front of me. Now it’s something to launch my way through again. Before it’s behind me, just like that.

A friend compared me to a border collie. “You need something to chase,” she laughed, “you don’t like having nothing to do.” She’s right. It feels like my natural state to go after what’s next. But honestly, I think I’m more like a cat, getting what I need by digging in and not letting go. A lot of people will tell you this isn’t good for you, that you should “chill out,” but I don’t share this sentiment. I understand what they mean—because sometimes it shows in my face, or they can hear it in my voice—but still, they are dead wrong. Not all stress is bad stress. There are parts, acute attentiveness for one, that I like pressing against my brain. Stress that fights for space among all the tedium is like sunlight itself. I really can’t get enough.

I might have said the exact same thing about stress before I understood how inherent it is to the process, before I knew how to handle it, or how to contain it. I like to believe I wouldn’t have said this to someone before I realized all this, but I think I must have.

Before I figure out What’s Next, I like to think back on what I’ve lost and gained in the three years and two months since I started this book: The best thing is that Larry and I found a new home on Bainbridge Island. After losing our downtown Seattle neighborhood, or what felt like losing it—to drugs, violence, homeless desperation—I went searching for a place that didn’t break my heart. I found it. By far the worst thing is that my nephew, Jonothan, passed away, suddenly and much too young. Sadly, my dad can’t remember his own name anymore, but the last time I visited, a gentle nurse combed his hair and sang to him, and he smiled and smiled, and I have to believe he is in good hands, or I’ll go mad. One friend drifted away, another I sort of cut loose (no more friends who talk like they want to set me straight, I don’t need setting), one of my dearest friends died (grief is such hard work), and my three bests still love me, or maybe I should say they tolerate me lovingly (and I love them so much it makes my heart spring when their names come up on my phone). Several new friends have come into my life. One makes me happy in ways that make me feel giddy with good fortune. Our talks are like a day at the spa, with a splash of Sangiovese. Another, well, I don’t always get her sense of humor, but I laugh anyway because her drollness is never like, oh, god, shoot me now. I don’t want just people anymore, I want souls to match. I’m still happily married to the man I met at 19 (I picture him reading this, how the realization that we’ve been together forever might hit him as he thinks to himself (with any luck) I would pull over to the side of the road and pick her up all over again. I was hitchhiking up to the Sol Duck Hot Springs when we met. He drove the shabbiest VW van I’d ever seen. I didn’t hold it against him. As soon as he jumped out of the driver’s seat to ask where I was headed, I knew. I also knew what was going to happen in that van the moment I set eyes on him. One thing did lead to another. My publisher said yes to publishing another book, this book. What a great idea! And holy crap, I was invited to teach dance in Pape'etē, Tahiti, and I thought it might be too much to fit in during a launch year. But then I thought, too fucking bad, I’m going. Oh, and this might not be part of the same vital list but I’m on a roll: while swimming a channel in Hawaii I’ve swam for twenty years, I got nipped on my right thigh by a baby reef shark. “Baby” in that it was only, maybe, three feet long. It was the perfect storm of events, one any swimmer in my swimming tribe can relate to: I left for my swim without eating as much as I should have, and because the current was strong, I depleted fast. When I got to Kaimana Beach, the water fountain wasn’t working, so because I couldn’t swim the full distance back without hydrating, I had to cut around a rock levy where anyone who has spent real time in the water off Kaimana knows the whitetips like to nestle in and sleep. When I swam too close, one of the babies sort of rolled over and gave me a little nip, like, “Hey, get out of my cradle!” A warning, but hardly an attack. All sharks have the ability to learn and adapt. It likely recognized me. Plus, whitetips are not aggressive. They are not tiger sharks. I’ve seen only one tiger shark in all my years of swimming in Hawaii, some fifty feet away, and I still lose sleep over that sighting. I slammed the whitetip hard with my fist and swam off fast. When I saw my friend Ellen treading water near shore and showed her my bloody bite-mark, she said I was in shock, took me by the hand, and walked me home. I was in the water the next day. I had to be. Life can be scary, but we must continue to risk for happiness. Different people need different things to be happy, and I need to swim. I can feel the scar if I rub my fingers over it. It’s a little pink worm. You can hardly see it anymore.

So, whew, big adjustments each: an island reprieve, unexplainable deaths, fluid friends and ones solid as a rock, a nurse who cares, that first phase of lust, that fish bite—everything seemed to flow together somehow, leaving more gain than loss (though not for you, Lou Ann and Charlie, I know).

I mostly write non-fiction, so I don’t see closure as a real thing. I think it’s more of an embellishment of fiction writing coupled with our need to label everything, even things as complex as emotions. In reality, we just keep going.

My biggest challenge is what to write next.

Something will come to me.

Mary Lou Sanelli is the author of Every Little Thing, a collection of essays nominated for last year's Washington State Book Award. Her essays appear on the Opinion Page of the Seattle Times. Her newest book, In So Many Words, is forthcoming in September. She also works as a columnist, speaker, and master dance teacher. She lives on Bainbridge Island.