It is midwinter here in Pennsylvania. Yesterday, about two hundred miles west from my home, Punxsutawney Phil— seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators—came out of his burrow and selected a scroll. The scroll said there would be six more weeks of winter.
Visiting Phil the Groundhog, Punxsutawney, PA, December 2011
It was also Imbolc— a day with Celtic origins, halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (it becomes St. Brigid’s Day when Catholicism arrives). On the Jewish calendar, this week is Tu B’shevat— popularly called “the New Year of the Trees” — when they would begin to flower in ancient Israel. And less than two weeks ago, it was Lunar New Year, a peak moment for many Asian traditions, celebrated by billions of people around the world as we entered the year of the water rabbit.
I am thinking about this confluence on the calendar, and the movie Groundhog Day, and repetition.
Religions rely on repetition. We repeat prayers—the same ones—over and over. The Catholic hands moving along the rosary, its beads shiny or worn from use, the Jewish woman gently rocking forward, again, and again, and again, each time she begins the amidah (a central prayer), her whole life. We repeat rituals. Even without being stuck in a time loop—let a year go by, and it’s Groundhog Day, again. It’s time for red envelopes, again. Repetitions on the wheel of existence can lead to change—making Groundhog Day a lot of fun to analyze alongside Buddhism. Sometimes these circles of life are joyous. Other times, they evoke hard memories.
Repetition can be both comfort and pain, salve and prison.
Once upon a time, I broke apart on Groundhog’s Day. I blame Elsa. It was 2014, and, like Phil the weatherman (Billy Murray) in Groundhog Day, I seemed to be stuck in days of painful, exhausting repetitions. The Wisconsin winter was relentless. My job there was at a bad point, and I felt trapped. My toddler had stopped sleeping through the night.
Frozen fever was hitting the nation. It would be a few months before my daughter made me sing “Let it Go” at bedtime every night, but as a card-carrying Disney Adult, I had gone to see the film, and found it enchanting.
You have to remember, the song was new. It was not yet a total cliche. So I listened to it at the gym while I was on the elliptical machine.
It felt like being free. It offered a promise of feeling real feelings, of setting aside perfection, of holding onto one’s power in the midst of a winter storm. My soul was “spiraling in frozen fractals” all around. Just a Planet Fitness instead of a magical ice castle.
It felt like spring. The elliptical whirred. Whoosh, whoosh. Repetition. Faster. Whoosh, whoosh.
An hour later, I came crashing down from my endorphin high and had the worst mental health crisis of my entire life.
Most parents that year said they were going crazy from hearing “Let it Go” on constant repeat, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. I unraveled because it was hard coming down from the escape the song promised.
**
The rest of that is a story for another time, and not something I’m ready to write about here. Nine years and a few other traumas later, I’m fine. But I am stuck here in a different winter, thinking about repetition.
Like religions, Disney relies on repetition. Before the pandemic, Disney had a 70 percent return rate for first time visitors to the parks. In theater re-releases, then on home video, and now on Disney+, its films are designed to be watched over. And over. And over.
This fact is bemoaned by many parents— “if I hear “The Family Madrigal” ONE. MORE. TIME—,” but it is also why these films bring such comfort. Millennials (and some of us in late Gen X) could take The Little Mermaid out of its giant “clamshell” VHS box, pop it into the VCR, and settle in to pleasant sea shanty “Fathoms Below,” the sigh with relief as a fish swam away from its captors’ nets and right into the opening titles. (And the glorious orchestration for those opening titles!). During the long, long winters of the early pandemic, Disney films— and a million other forms of pop culture— became our international klonopin. Just a little something to soothe us through the uncertainty.
**
Last Sunday, I ran+walked 10 miles in the Lehigh Parkway—my favorite place to run in the Lehigh Valley. On a small hillside, tiny yellow flowers had bloomed on brush that is close to the ground.
These are always the first ones, even before the snowdrops. My little yellow heralds of spring, every since my first winter running season in 2018. I had hoped I might see them but hadn’t really expected them until February. (Climate change, I assume— a mild winter here).
Seeing them jolted me into awareness, awe, tears. I mumbled parts of the shechehiyanu— the Jewish blessing for reaching a particular moment in time. It’s said on the first night of many holidays, on joyous life cycle occasions. Even more—saying it is an awakening to existence itself, what Rabbi Shefa Gold calls the wonder of having arrived. It is a blessing Jews repeat. If they are very lucky, they get to repeat it often.
There are actually specific blessings for seeing blossoming trees and rainbows and a million other things. There could be one for these very flowers.
But for me, each year, the first Run with the Tiny Yellow Flowers is its own Imbolc, its own Tu B’shvat, its own time that I have reached. An arrival in pounding feet— running is all repetition— expanding lungs, fingertips numb in the cold. So only the shechehiyanu will do.
And I wonder if anyone ever says the shechehiyanu in Disney World.
Or if maybe—for some people— travel itself, the movie itself, just life—itself—is already the prayer.