Lasts, by Maeve McBride

One of my COVID-approved winter pleasures last year was ice skating. Preferably skating on what I like to call wild ice. I was always on the lookout for pockets of ice, often short-lived and serendipitous, especially as the days grew longer, bringing warmth and melting. Wild ice are:

large frozen puddles on the beach of Lake Champlain
or beaver ponds
or a sudden lock-up of a bay on a particularly cold night or a rain-on-snow event followed by a polar vortex.

They are by nature a thrill, a gift, a fleeting opportunity.

One early morning while skating on the beach puddles, I knew it was probably my last romp. The ice was still holding strong in the shadows, but surrendering to melt in the sunshine. Late March. Most everyone I knew was celebrating the blast of spring weather on the horizon, but my mood was bittersweet. On the purely corporeal level, I would miss the meditative mini laps on my puddles.

I’d miss:

the rocking,
the swaying,
the speed,
the flight without wings,
the dance with the wind,
the fancy footwork to avoid the beach flotsam anchored in the ice.

On a meta-level, I notice that I feel this way each spring since I’ve fixed my gaze on the climate crisis. Anticipatory grief, perhaps. Knowing that at some future point, this turn of season will mark the last. Is this the last time? Will the ice return next year? How many more winters can we expect? And we likely won’t know when it is the last time.

The last time the lake freezes over.
The last time we get over a foot of snow.
The last time I hear the squeakiness of the snow underfoot in subzero temps.
The last time my breath turns my hair into icicles.
The last time somebody’s kids get to celebrate an unexpected snow day.

My last skate on wild ice corresponded with the season of Lent. Growing up as an atheist adjacent to many Catholics in my working- class town, my narrow view of Lent was the season for giving up chocolate, bacon, or a particular TV show. Now I’m in a process of reclaiming a version of Christianity that has been marginalized for millenia. It’s feminist. It’s Jesus-was-a-brown-skinned-Jewish- immigrant. It’s experiential, radical, and ready to take on the empire. Part of my reclamation is reconsidering the Christian traditions and rituals. I realized that Lent could also be a time to remember the “lasts”, as it also corresponds to the period marking the end of Jesus’ life, in the flesh.

The last 40 days of a life is a whole series of lasts:

Conversations,
Experiences,
Connections,
Intimacies,
Views of sunsets.

And for the survived-by group, like Mary and the disciples, if the upcoming death is anticipated, the Lenten season is a time of heightened awareness. How tightly might we hold our beloved when embraces are known to be limited? How potent are the words spoken in the last days or moments? What mysteries might be uncovered with our soon-to-be- departed? What final gifts are available to them, to us? I’m curious if the disciples knew that the Last Supper was, in fact, the last supper with their Rabbi. What if we took communion as an act of remembering our last meal with a group of beloveds, and recognized Christ in all of them? This Lent, I gave up social media, in an attempt to make more room for the divine. I wanted to heighten my awareness of my connection to god. It worked.

In the years following my mother’s death, when approaching her death date, I would recall her last days and weeks. The last Mother’s Day. The last time we took her to our camp in the woods. The last solstice. In those weeks before her deathversary, grief was often more present, as was a closer connection to her and those memories. It was almost as if those grief emotions and bodily sensations became associated with early summer days. I didn’t need to consciously recall the memories, somehow my body had maintained a log of feelings and experiences. It has become a season unto itself. As Lent brings Christians to the high holy days and the miracle resurrection, June brings me to my mother’s last day. I mark it with ritual. In return, I’m often graced with a sense of her spirit in the wild.

And so I’ve come to appreciate lasts, and maybe not cling to them. Honoring them, instead of hoarding them. Slowing down to pay attention and anticipate them, rather than living at a blinding, consumptive speed. The pandemic has provided ample opportunities to ponder many lasts. From the mundane lasts like the last time I went to the office or the last time I had dinner out, to the more heart-breaking ones like the last time I held my grandchild or the last time I saw my (friend, parent, love). Many of us have been forced to slow down, and we have had the space to recognize these lasts. Perhaps we’ve had enough time to pay them homage and feel their unique grief. Maybe more than enough time.

Pandemic times have also meant many more people are getting “closer to nature”. In so doing, are they closer to the tragedy of a rapidly warming world? For those of us who have fixed our gaze at the climate crisis, anticipatory grief is an emotion we know and reckon with. Fellow organizers, fellow Easter people, I believe we need to continue to resist, reform, restore, and rebuild for all that we can still save. Alongside that labor for climate justice and Revolutionary Love, I believe we also need to make ample time and space for grief and gratitude, and in so doing, remake a culture of sacred relationships to land, water, seasons, and our earthly and mystical co-habitants.

On that last morning of skating, as I was about to leave the beach, I turned and gazed back. I realized I had not given gratitude. I walked back to the edge of the frozen puddle and I got down on my knees. I thanked, I honored. I transferred a kiss from my fingers to the ice and received the ice-cold meltwater back to my brow. Making this time worthy and sacred, if it happens to be my last.

This and many of Maeve’s powerful and inspiring writings can be found on Patreon—timely essays, poetry, guided meditations, and more. We would love for you to support her work! https://www.patreon.com/mcmaeve/posts

Maeve will be live as part of ONE’s Nature Evolutionaries Series on December 12th. Register or listen afterward to the recording here.