Warm air up above
Cold air down below
Rain transmuted to ice
In the church of
the temperature inversion
A small stone for Day 26.
Water
immersing myself in melancholy
(a pity party with whine and cheese)
life gives me a sudden chiropractic treatment of the mind
(an attitude adjustment)
pulling me out of the muck of my own making
opening me up to possibility
and joy
As I mentioned on my other blog yesterday, we are sailing into the January Doldrums, the passage to the February Funk. That’s winter.
rambling, chattering mind
moving off in all directions at once
words, words, and more words
float by
disconnected
vast, empty, barren
crowded, jammed, overflowing
i got nothin’
A small stone for day 24.
I can’t tell if there is too much going on in my head or nothing at all. This was the best I could do today. The photo is from last year’s winter trip to Erie, Pennsylvania. Lake Erie was frozen. The stretch of white and blue was vast and appeared empty from a distance, but once my eyes adjusted to the almost monochromatic scene, details started to appear and I could see that there was a lot going on.
Bend your knees. Learn forward slightly. Relax the knees. Long, thin, strips of fiberglass designed to spread body weight evenly will slide, glide, and coast across the snow. Relax! Bend your knees! Ready.
I am a goofy foot, launching on my right ski.
First rule learned in first lesson: Relax! Put a little bounce in your body. Slight uphill to start and then a gentle, gentle glide through the meadow, sunlight sparkling on the snow, cold air grazing my face. At the end is the turn and steeper downhill.
I often end up in the brambles at the end of that hill. I forget to relax.
Swoosh! Snow flies. I fall, laughing as I do the turtle, skis and feet high up in the air (how can you not laugh at that position?), and roll over on my side to get back up. There is freedom in that first fall. Joy.
Relaxed, knees bent, a little bounce in my body, I take on the big hill with a joyful wheeeeeee!
Day 22’s small stone. A little wordier than usual. I actually fell twice today, but the first fall was the best because it’s always the first fall that releases the fear.
Fresh snow accumulated overnight, redrawing the lines of the landscape. The birds gather around the feeder, some on the ground scratching for fallen seeds buried in the snow. A red-tailed hawk perches on a high branch in a tree at the edge of the meadow, watching. Waiting. A fine white powder, barely visible, is being squeezed and sifted from the clouds overhead, falling softly, silently, in a straight line from sky to ground. The air is still. The raspy screech of another hawk somewhere off in the distance is carried across the hills and the pond.
I wonder why all the birds don’t fly south to escape the cold and snow, leaving us birdless for a season.
fifteen minutes at zero degrees
even with layers
— fleece gloves, mittens on top —
the cold nips, snaps, bites
invades my fingertips
inducing clumsiness
benumbed, dipping them in warm water
color and feeling return
with excruciating pain
not one good photo to show for it
It’s bitterly cold here today after yesterday’s snowstorm. I went out at sunrise hoping to catch some of the pink and purple sunlight that ushered in the dawn. The cold went right to my fingers. It wasn’t long before my cold-numbed fingers were stumbling around on the camera buttons, a sure sign it’s time to give up and go inside. My fingers are fine, but the warm-up was painful.
perched on a stool in the kitchen
bare feet gripping the rungs
hands embracing the warmth of a cuppa
I watch the snowflakes bob and boogie
to the music on the radio
Sheets of rain dash across the surface of the pond, driven by bursts of wind. Streamlets of mud snake their way downhill, bleeding into the water, great brown blotches spreading out across the grayish-green reflection from the sky.
Sparkles of red, blue, and gold twinkle on the pond. The birds are sunning themselves in the bare trees, trying to catch a little warmth on this frigid morning. Bright, beautiful sunshine and blue skies have replaced the clouds. Feet of ice dip their toes into a stream of blue water. Not everything is frozen.
eyes closed
warm water
cascading
over my head
and body
I am standing
beneath a waterfall
on a tropical island
where snow and winter
never visit
A small stone for Day 14.
Bountiful Healing 