The storm before the storm

Credit where it's due

They were calling for snow. Lots of it. It was a Friday night in late January, seven years ago.

I spent Saturday morning up to my waist, clearing my sidewalk, then one neighbor’s, then the other’s. Twenty-four inches—still the best shoulder workout I’ve ever done. It shut the city down completely. DC hasn’t seen that kind of snow since. Not even close. 

The snow isn’t the real story here, though. It’s just what was up with the weather right as the bottom was about to fall out.

I only snapped this photo because it was snowing like crazy. Can’t say I knew I was documenting one of my life’s inflection points.

My dad called me that Friday night, as I was checking the forecast and making dinner. He asked me if he could borrow some money again. I said no, again

Then he told me something else: he had used my birthday and Social Security number to take out a credit card, and there was an outstanding balance of over $10,000.

Life crashed down on me in the weeks that followed.

I found out what he spent the money on, and I learned what rage was. I discovered there was a second card, one he swore hadn’t existed, and I ached with betrayal. I wondered what I could trust in this life, and whether any part of my upbringing or our relationship was worthwhile. I coped in ways healthy and not, and I leaned on friends and family for things I never thought I’d ask for. 

The credit card situation was the stirring that preceded awakening—a  spool from which, in the years to come, thicker threads of life would unravel. Anger that had always been at a low boil; shame that was oh-so-clarifying; the devastating grief of my childhood. It would leave me tracing through lines of ancestral pain, the kind that doesn’t distinguish between giver and recipient. It would make me ready to breathe deep and swallow hard and say the word “abuse.” It would launch me on a quest —a grasping at, a pressing toward, a return, again and again and again, to asking myself how much I really wanted forgiveness and compassion and healing. 

That night, though, I just hung up the phone and sat down, shocked.

The blizzard that hit town that weekend was immobilizing and total, forceful in its singularity. The only thing to do was to shovel and wait.

Just like the dead end Dad and I had come to. 

Nowhere to go, and time to face the facts.

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Writing and publishing are hard work. I offer my words freely, but I also hope to earn an income from them. If you’re able to support my effort, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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“Telling the old story so there's space to live the new one”

That’s one way I like to explain writing’s place in my life. It’s fun just because, but it’s also an act of creating the world I want to live in.

If you’re a writer yourself, or if you’re curious, check it out:

• There are a couple seats open in my Tuesday night writing group, which starts on 3/28.

• I’m also hosting a one-day workshop next Saturday morning (3/25), and there’s plenty of space in that one.

Much love,

Jonathan