Sunbreaks in the Rain, Surviving My First Root Canal, Finding Flowers in Our Darkest Winter Month

Sunbreak in the rain

Sunbreaks in the Rain

This has been the wettest January on record for Seattle and its environs, and I have definitely felt it. You have to try to get out in the rain, and hope you’ll be lucky enough to catch a sunbreak or a rainbow, the way I did right after I shot this photo. January is also so dreary and dark here, that even people without clinical seasonal affective disorder can feel a little depressed and stifled.

I don’t hate the rain, or the cold, or the dark, at least not individually, but when they all gang up on you…

Post-Root Canal smile

Surviving My First Root Canal

I had my first root canal, with no Novocain, but with sedation. It wasn’t too bad, but it turned out my tooth’s infection was bad enough to take me down for a few days while I recovered with the aid of antibiotics. And the bad news is, the tooth right next to it – which already has a crown – needs another one. At least I won’t be so afraid of the next one. Anyway, if any of you have been scared to get one, it wasn’t so bad! I remember thinking, even through the sedation, that it didn’t even hurt very much! Now I have to wait a couple of weeks to have a crown on that broken tooth, which is nerve-wracking, because if I hurt that tooth’s temporary bonding, I might have to get an extraction instead of a crown.

Sleeping does lie

Anyway, yay, I survived, and even though I was a weirdo dental patient  – a little out of the ordinary, the endodontist had to use a special filling, my root was shaped unusually, and all that no Novocain thing – everything was just fine. The funny thing was, they tell you not to sign any contracts or shop while you’re on the sedation drug, called Versed – but I submitted three book manuscripts that night, which I don’t remember, and bought two lipsticks and a shampoo – I guess it could have been worse! And a couple of days later, mostly sleeping I stumbled out into the rain…and found deer in the yard! They had munched on a bit of our camellias, but I guess that’s all right. And I’ve been trying to take advantage of all the sunbreaks and rainbows I can.

Pink Blossoms, after snow

Finding Flowers in January

I was determined, in the heart of January cold and dark, to discover some signs of spring. A few hyacinth plants are starting to shoot up, and this blooming shrub did not get killed by the snow. I ventured out to our local nursery, to see what they had to offer – a bunch of faux flowers, a few camellias, primroses, and cyclamen in bloom, and mostly bare-root plants. It was still fun to try to plan a little bit for spring, or at least pretend for a little bit.

Flowers seem like a metaphor for hope to me. If you’re in that time in between good things, a long losing streak when you’re waiting for good news or the right publisher, just watch. It could be closer than you think.