Apricity

The word above showed up in my email as the “Word of the Day.” (The pronunciation was wrong, but I appreciated the reminder.) I had made a note of this word over ten—or more—years ago because I liked the sound of it. A-pri-city. It’s an old word and I hadn’t heard it before, so I electronically remembered it in a Word document so I could be sure to toss it around and sound smart, but of course I forgot about it and the word and the file I saved it in went unused for a decade.

Then, about a year or so ago, on social media, I began seeing Instagram reels with handsome young men saying the word and sharing the definition. I went looking for my file to see if I had written down anything other than the word itself, but the file was so long gone, it was actually gone. And I forgot about it again. Then came the email: A-pri-city. The warmth of the sun in winter. Besides being a cool word with an interesting etymology, I still didn’t really have any way to incorporate it into my own little world. Or did I?

I give a prompt to my weekly writing group to start our session and a recent one—possibly generated by the previous few weeks of ongoing bad news—was this:

What is the meaning of life anyway?

Unless I’m still trying to get organized for the session, I write along and this time I was able to. I wrote:

So, I might be a little maudlin to put up such a prompt, but as I write, I find I’m not feeling maudlin or depressed or sad or anxious, but in some ways—strong. The meaning of life—I think—is that there can be meaning found in even the darkest times. That’s what being a human entails. Humans have brains that make meaning, and every single brain does it differently. Is it denial to find a silver lining in a cancer diagnosis? Maybe, but the whole point of finding meaning—I think—is that there is not just one meaning, but many. So, the question isn’t “what is the meaning of life” but what are the meanings of life?

Besides the obvious plug to my weekly essay on Substack, I felt like I was on to something. (It’s funny, because even though I make up the prompts, I always write to them as if it was the first time I’m seeing it.) I tucked those thoughts away to mull over later—they seemed to be connected to much about what I had been thinking about.

Naturally, within 24 hours of my wrapping my head around the meanings of life, we discovered Annie’s recent scans had shown more progression. I will admit I was plunged into heartache once again. This back and forth, forging ahead only to be knocked back down, relentless delivery of good news/bad news is exhausting. And it feels like it always happens right before the weekend! How can we take in and process any news or review treatment plans when the weekend has filled up with normal family things like sleepovers and grocery shopping?

Or snowstorms? A Nor’easter blew into town—a snowstorm that closed our doors and kept us inside at our home and Annie and family inside their home. We were lucky: we had firewood, electricity and enough leftovers and chocolates from the holidays to keep us sustained. Angelo and I sat in front of the fire, taking turns tending it, snacking, doing puzzles and dozing. For the next 24 hours, we were safe and content.

The warmth of a fireplace in winter :)

But how can we be? It’s so hard to have the elasticity required to meet each challenge as it incorporates itself into what has become our daily lives. I feel like we grow up thinking so insistently that life will be one way—mostly good—that we fiercely resist the times when it is challenging or tragic. Making meaning of that—the way life actually is—is to remember that both things are true: life is amazing and it is tragic. For me, it reminds me that even in the difficult times we still have love.

Like the warmth of the sun in winter.