::: still winter :::

I've been hearing a lot of people murmuring wistfully that they wish this snow would melt. They're ready for SPRING, they declare, wrapping their arms around their sweatered torsos while affecting a theatrical shiver. And while I will concede that this winter has given us a pounding of precipitation, I have to give it credit; it's a winter, I tell ya, a genuine, bona fide winter. None of those half-hearted "dustings" or anemic "flurries" for us here in the midwest. We've had one serious snowstorm and blustery blizzard after another, transforming major metropolitan areas into thick blanketed ghost towns, making our rural roads impassable and turning my country lane into a snowbank lined luge track. It stops people in their tracks, slows us all down, shows us we're simply not in control.

And I like it.

My fourteen-year-old son isn't the one who checks the school closings hour-by-hour, beginning the night before. I am. My children aren't the ones standing at the patio door with their noses pressed against the cold, frosty glass, watching the giant flakes float from a bright blue sky. That would be me. And while you would say, "Well, it's pretty, but I don't like to drive in it," neither do I, which is why I don't. It's those snow days that get me off the hook, give me permission to stay at home, rent an iTunes movie or three, plant myself on the couch with a few good books, spend a day in the kitchen making bread or pizza or soup or some new recipe that happens to call for things that I already have in my pantry. On snow days, I get a reprieve. On snow days, all bets are off.

I'm not really sure why this is, because, as a stay-at-home mom, I generally get to determine what does and doesn't get done on any given day. Still, the days usually find me not staying home but trotting from store to store and place to place collecting chipped coconut or tamarind or sheep grain or three ring binders or Dad's blood pressure medicine or someone's forgotten coat/hat/shoes/iPod. I go to meetings and concerts and plays and programs. Even when I'm home, I open the door to repairmen, salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Amish guys selling assembly-line, fundraiser pizzas.

When the snowstorms comes, though, I know that no one's going to brave my luge track to hand me a Watchtower or peddle a pie. I'm safe to leave my hair uncombed, wear my comfortable elastic-waist pants with the hole in the butt and leave my face bare. I don't have to make the bed, if I don't wanna, and I don't have to shovel the walkway. But I CAN if I WANT to, see. I've got all the time in the world.

Winter allows layers of clothing. I can wear my sweater leggings and laced black boots under a corduroy skirt, a cotton shirt, an earthy sweater and a jacket, my toasty leather mittens with the fingered liners inside, and a thick, fluffy scarf. The perfect ensemble to hide all of my wobbly bits.

And, besides, what happens when this gorgeous blanket of white succumbs to a warm March rain or an unexpected February sun? Do midwesterners really believe that melting snow in January is a harbinger of Spring? Do they not remember their many, many years of living here, in a place where snow continues to fall and snowstorms stack up, sometimes into early May?

When the snow melts in the first quarter of the year, my friends, what we are left with is mud. Puddles and pockets and pits of mud. When the white stuff relents, we are left with a mess, the detritus of winter's litterers unveiled. Now, instead of a harmless puddle of melted snow beside my kitchen door, I'm faced with a heap of mud-encrusted shoes, clothes and children. The dogs no longer leave little wet footprints when they bound in from an outdoor romp, but sploshy smears of sludge. The passel of piles of poo that sunk, steaming, beneath the snow upon first deposit and lay preserved through the months of December, January, February, are now exposed and thawed, sodden and bloated, waiting for an unsuspecting child's, repairman's or Jehovah's Witness's shoe to carry them through the door, onto the white carpet or the wood floor where I find the remains later after feeling a slight wetness on the bottom of my last pair of clean socks.

Yes, Spring will come. When mid-April arrives, her spikes of green crocus leaves breaking up the monochrome, immutable landscape, Spring will come. It will not arrive sooner, no matter how we wish and whine and swear and shiver. It will not arrive in late February or mid-March or early April. For some of us, it will not arrive in early May. So, let's have Winter, shall we? A real, bona fide winter! With the countrysides cloaked in quilts of blue and white, stitched in sticks of black, bejeweled with icicles and spangled with glistening powder, canopied by skies of blue and hazy snowblink, occasionally leaving a gift of fleeting, photogenic air and surface hoar, begging to be admired, gone by the first glance of the sun.

As I look out the window, I'm thrilled to find a fresh batch of flurries gliding to the ground. I'll shove my toes into my comfy slippers and make a cup of hot tea.

It is still winter, after all.

::: alas! how changed from the fair scene :::

When winter winds are piercing chill,

And through the hawthorn blows the gale,

With solemn feet I tread the hill,

That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away

Through the long reach of desert woods,

The embracing sunbeams chastely play,

And gladden these deep solitudes.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,

The summer vine in beauty clung,

And summer winds the stillness broke,

The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs

Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,

When birds sang out their mellow lay,

And winds were soft, and woods were green,

And the song ceased not with the day!

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;

And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,

Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear

Has grown familiar with your song;

I hear it in the opening year,

I listen, and it cheers me long.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

::: bare :::

The branches of the silver maple outside my window are completely bare now. Where less than a month ago there fluttered beautiful leaves the color of which I can only recall now by looking at photos, there is nothing. Three weeks ago, I couldn't see beyond the tree for the abundance of leaves. Now, I can see all that was hidden behind it.

Maybe this is why the starkness of winter is so sobering to me. It reminds me of what it feels like, what it looks like, to shed all outward beauty, all color and opacity and splendor, and just stand, naked and vulnerable and transparent, cold and singular on a hill, exposing everything you've managed to cover for so long--the forgotten kite, the abandoned nest, the broken branches--and slip away into a deep sleep, like a grandmother who has dozed off in front of the tv with her mouth open and her bifocals askew. 

But deep season-long sleep is for stately trees, not for common women with families and friends, feasts and fast-food-drive-through lunches, plans and obligations, electric bills and grocery budgets, mice in her fruit cellar and children needing taught. And so the hibernation must take a different form, the nightly kind, with some reading of King Arthur to little girls who are learning to knit and embroider, and some episodes of The Office while snuggled in bed under a big, down blanket, and some blogging with the fierce sound of little mouse-teeth scraping away at something determinedly underneath my big bathtub.

Which means that Spring must come each morning, with a handful of vitamins and a glass of Benefiber, a must-have to-do list, and the sheer will power that keeps one sleep-stiffened foot shuffling in front of the other.

Drawing by Monet

::: whatsoever things are lovely :::

The landscapes were so inviting tonight, the moody skies meeting the ever optimistic sunbeams. I grabbed my camera and Bo acted as my chauffeur and we ambled our minivan along the back roads of our neighborhood to see what the sun might be kissing.

Think on these things.

::: this is october :::

::: view from my desk :::

This is what's keeping me going today. Every time I look to the left of where I'm sitting right now, the window, filled with the image of that gorgeous silver maple tree, gives me just the amount of yellow life I need to make it through the next few minutes, and then the next, and then the next.

These days, when the days grow shorter and the skies grow gray, my energy level and patience both shrink drastically. Now more than ever I need help and encouragement from those I love, and lots of patience so that I might have some to pass on.

I don't like feeling weepy, cranky, snarky, but here it is. My vitamins and healthy eating don't seem to help. Road trips like the one we took to Niagara are just the lift I need, but how many of those can I pack in?

So I take the encouraging moments where I can get them, even if the only one I have is the view from my desk, the beautiful leaves that stored the summer sun and are holding on to it for just a little while longer. Thank you, tree. I'm glad that you are willing to share with me.

::: thou'st made the world too beautiful this year :::

Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!
thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me–let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay in God’s World

::: i found my thrill on chili hill :::

Every year, around the third week in October, our friends Steve and Sara host a chili supper at their home and invite all of their friends (and a few people they don't even know!) to enjoy it with them. A big pot of wood-fire cooked chili, a couple of hayrides, some hot cider, and lots of friendly faces make for a delicious event that our whole family looks forward.

This year, I baked a batch of Brown Butter Toffee Blondies from a recipe I saw on one of my favorite food blogs, honey & jam. I happened to have a big bag of toffee bits that Bo had brought home from the chocolate factory and had been wondering what to do with them, so when I saw the blondie recipe that Hannah had posted, I knew that's what I'd take to Chili Hill.

This year, Steve and Sara's eldest daughter, Laura, is a senior. Because this might be the last Chili Hill Laura, who has been accepted to West Point, will attend for a while, I wanted to get lots of photos. And that I did. :-)

::: autumn movement :::

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.
~Carl Sandburg

::: october :::

The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, –
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and new
As Spring and to the touch is not more cool
Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might
As happy be as earth is beautiful,
Were I some other or with earth could turn
In alternation of violet and rose,
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
And gorse that has no time not to be gay.
But if this be not happiness, – who knows?
Some day I shall think this a happy day,
And this mood by the name of melancholy
Shall no more blackened and obscured be.

by Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917)

::: oh, the lord's been good to me, and so i thank the lord :::

On Thursday morning, I stomped loudly into the girls' newly painted bedroom, stopped for a second to admire my work (again) and then hollered, "It's time to get up!"

And you know what? They did it.

Because the night before, I had threatened them with the gravest of punishments. I would attempt to wake them once. Just. Once. And if they failed to haul their fannies from their beds, I would let them sleep.

Harsh, huh?

Well, yeah, there's a little more to the story.

See, they'd been looking forward to meeting a new friend. We were going to spend the day making applesauce with Jill and her almost-ten-year-old daughter Miss-E, and we were to meet them at early-o'clock in the morning. And that required going to sleep instead of giggling. And that required serious threats. If they didn't tumble out of bed on my first attempt, they would sleep, and they would miss going to the orchard to meet with Jill and Miss-E.

So when I hollered, they responded. The Baby hopped up like a Pop Tart out of a toaster, and I only had to tell her to change clothes twice, given that it was 33 degrees and she was wearing shorts and sandals.

The drive was gorgeous, with a heavy fog filling all of the nooks and crannies of this sleepy 8,000 horse town.

It was delightful to spend the day with Jill, sharing lifestories like we were long-lost sisters, listening to the contented silence of little girls engrossed in Polly Pocket play. It was such a different and pleasant experience to spend the day in the kitchen with another woman, one who was competent and self-motivated, who was not shy to dive in and do what needed done. It was forever surprising to turn from a task only to turn back and see Jill finishing it, having picked up where I left off. When it came time for us to kick it into high gear so I could get to the evening's parent/teacher conference, I was sorry that the day was ending. I wish I could have someone like Jill around to keep me company in the kitchen every day.

We stopped long enough to harvest some basil, which Jill vigilantly plucked, washed, spun and stuffed into freezer bags and to enjoy a lunch of romaine salad, fettuccine with Alfredo sauce and fresh-pressed cider from the orchard.

When all was said and done, we had thirty-tree and a half quarts of cortland/grimes golden applesauce standing proudly on the wooden butcher block. When each one popped, Jill would say, "thank you!", a trick she'd passed on from the generation before her to her own children.

You know how they say that chopping wood warms you twice? Well, the same can be said for canning with a friend; first from the steaming heat of the water-bath canner, and the second time when you enjoy that yummy food and remember the day you shared with your canning buddy.