Peace Descending

After a few days of 70 degree sunshine, the day takes a bitter turn when a vicious cold front sweeps in.  The day is deceptively sunny and bright but the March wind is frigid - the dogs, ever anxious to get out, skitter to the back fence and quickly return - the small brown one crosses the threshold and without warning leaps into my arms.  I'm unprepared and very nearly don't catch her shivering, pitiful little body.  She burrows into my neck and whines as if to protest this unexpected weather event - I slip her an extra biscuit then ease her into one of her wool sweaters, a red cardigan with "Beware of Dog" stitched in large white letters and she trots to the bed and makes a nest under the pillows.  Sensing her distress, two of the cats arrive and curl themselves protectively around her.  She blinks, sighs, then drifts off to sleep.  The black dog and the little dachshund, both thicker coated and much tougher, make separate stops at the water bowl then settle a respectful distance apart in the sunroom.  Peace descends.

It's never a good idea to set your plans in cement, I think to myself.  Just when you pack the long johns away for another season and put up the winter jacket, a bitter, frost bitten and most unwelcome March wind can arrive and blow your plans to hell and back.  

I think of a recent social media post from a not very close friend of mine - a young woman who saw her husband through three rehabs and gave him two children - whose world has come tumbling down at the discovery of his infidelity with, insult to injury, her sister.  Betrayed on not just one but two fronts, she can't make up her mind whether to be enraged or destroyed, to comfort or kill him and regardless of the outcome, things between her and her sister will never be the same.  I cannot imagine her pain but oddly enough I can imagine her forgiving him - she has children to support and raise and will not want to do it alone and that may be enough - on the other hand, she may find it more straightforward to shoot him and be done with it.  There have been times when it's what I wished I'd done.

Once upon a time I dreamed of being married forever, of never having to worry about money or illness or old age or insecurity.  I imagined traveling and a house on the shore, a small staff of capable and devoted servants, a new car every year or two, a circle of trusted and well off friends.  I would slip into this life as you might a familiar old flannel nightgown and leave the nuisance details to someone else.  I dreamed of it, even came close to achieving it.  It seems foolish now, foolish and superficial and trite to have dismissed fate and human failings.   

Life gets easier once you learn the difference between plans and fairy tales.  In another few days, the warm weather returns and peace descends.