A Sudden Chill …Part 3 ...Emotional Rescue

If you desire healing,
let yourself fall ill...
let yourself fall ill.
— Rumi

Port Dover, Snowbound

It’s strange at night how reality changes mood—the lack of actuality not only alters our perceptions, but also influences our thought processes.

I watched the day die over the lake—it was overcast, so there was no solemn sunset to toast with a glass of wine, and night came sooner than normal.

That’s to be expected, I suppose—although there’s civic twilight and there’s nautical twilight. The day lasts much longer on or near water.

I confess I was hoping the day would be prolonged, but no such consolation.

It’s one of those consequences of needing to be surrounded by light when someone who was close to you is gone.

I’m not sure if isolating in a cottage was such a good idea after all. Marnie meant well, but lake breezes and deserted beaches may invigorate in sunshine, but at night, the blues return.

My journal lies open under the desk lamp. I can’t bear the unforgiving pages—such recrimination from mere vellum.

I’d rather be in the French restaurant in town scribbling on napkins. I’ve always been a kitchen table kind of guy.

Okay, maybe that’s a partial fantasy about Jill, the waitress. See what I mean how the mind plays tricks?

Hell, she wrote her name with a heart on a restaurant bill—it wasn’t a billet doux, but she did smile a lot, and it was a French restaurant.

Argggh! I’m driving myself nuts.

I go to the window and peer out. I see my pale face staring back at me, and the lake is pitch black. Who knew water could be so dark?

I grab my car keys and my coat, but stop myself before I’m halfway to the door. Who am I trying to fool? I’m running away again—running from myself.

What is it about silence that is so frightening?

I force myself to go back and sit down on the couch. I can light a fire and simply be. Listen to soft music or the gentle ticking of the grandfather clock.

That’s the thing about silence—It’s not the absence of sound, but the fact that you’re alone.

I get up and pour myself some wine and on purpose sit before the fire, and allow myself time to just unwind.

The night is filled with moaning and gnashings, and the tick of ice against the windowpane.

I groan inwardly but am too tired to check outside. An ice storm in late October…What the hell is happening to our weather?

When I awake nest morning, the room is bright with a strange grey light.

I get up and part the drape and my jaw dropx. I look outside to see a world still asleep in the faint light of snow.

I glance at the clock radio on the nightstand but the digits are dark and it's cold in the house.

Damn! The power is off.

Just what I need—a freak early winter storm.

Can’t be helped, I thought as I dressed in the early morning gloom.

I can light a fire and muddle through, but I need coffee and forgot to check the stove. If it's electric, I won’t have my morning jolt.

Still, the cottage is close to the main drag—you never know.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the burner and grates of an old-style gas stove.

Without electricity the gas station pumps wouldn’t be working anyway and the restaurants and stores probably closed.

Oh well, another day without Jill. I really have to get control, I smile to myself, as I fill the kettle.

Fortunately, my laptop and cell phone are charged, so I create a personal hotspot and get on the Internet with my Mac Air.

I make French toast—I know, I’m obsessing, and between bites of that and sips of coffee I find out that Dover is buried under two feet of white beauty and it’ll probably take days to dig it out.

Lovely, just lovely.

Speaking of digging out, I glance out the window at my car and my heart sinks. It's sitting buried under an enormous snowdrift.

Looks like my morning is already planned out for me. I hate being closed in, and already the thought of being snowbound is making me claustrophobic.

To make matters worse, I don’t have snow boots—I mean, who’d have thunk it? But as it turns out, Bart, Marnie’s husband, has left behind a pair of rubber boots that fit me. They aren’t lined but they’ll keep the snow out.

There's a broom and garden spade on the back porch so I figure I’ll use these to dig the car out and then search the backyard shed for snow shovels.

I don’t look forward to tackling the long driveway.

It takes over an hour to dig out and brush off the car, and although I'm tired, I decide to check the shed for snow shovels.

When I open the double doors, my heart stops. There's a heavy-duty snow blower sitting there and beside it two full gas cans.

I prime the engine and pray as I pulled the start cord. The motor roars to life, and after a few preliminary puffs of blue smoke, it runs perfectly.

I start from the shed to the car making a two foot-wide path and then continue onto the road.

If push comes to shove, I’ll clear a path down the entire street to one of the primary roads if necessary, to give me a way out.

I shake my head at the thought. Now that is being obsessive.

The scrape of a snow shovel on a nearby driveway brings me back to the present and I'm about to wave a greeting when I notice the resident.

It's Jill from the French restaurant.

Now that is serendipity, or Fate intruding on my grief...

But whatever strange synchronicity drew me here is already healing my pain.

To be continued...

© 2025, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

Photo