All tagged Home
“Now it is November, my favorite month. November calms me. It comes, blessedly, before the rising pressures of Christmastime. It brings soup season, and a good book by the fire, and brisk walks. Whatever the year has held, things seem to exhale in November. The projects and chaos and messiness of the inevitable activities of spring and summer tend to be winding down, at least here where the snows of winter arrive to muffle the bustle.”
“It was a perfect day for splitting logs: fresh breeze, cool, sunny. I enjoy this sort of work, with its rhythm and sense of accomplishment as the pile of large pieces is processed into a pile of more usable sizes. Pick up a log, place it on the splitter’s horizontal surface, pull the hydraulic lever, wait. Let the machine do its job. Easy-breezy.”
“Well, my goodness! It’s been months since I have written a blog. At first, back in July, I fretted about losing my twice-a-month goal, and letting down my faithful readers… What a summer it was, one of abundant (self-induced) chaos and disruption, on the heels of a fairly disruptive spring (also self-induced). Autumn? It’s been a little nuts, too.”
“I laze, and think back. Last time I woke up in a bed, I was 7,200 miles away in Shimla, India. Traversing space becomes a matter of duration. Arriving home was a 41-hour gauntlet of driving and waiting in airport lounges and hiking through terminals to the four flights (one for 16-1/2 hours) that brought me home…”
“As my mind slowly rises from the depths of sleep, I awaken in a state of pure, leisurely relaxation. The birds outside my windows are singing, but otherwise, I am surrounded by stillness of the sort that fuels my soul. More than a quarter-century of rising to the rhythm, the feel, the air, the sounds of this place has made of it an exceptional spot to call home.”
“…Ever since Friday, February 24, my extended family has had the joy and trepidation normal to all that comes with greeting a newborn into life. Yes, what everyone has told me (and which I never doubted), it is life changing. Along with her parents, her other grandparents, her aunts and uncles and cousins, and her other many admirers across the globe, this little girl has been heartily and happily received.”
“From low in the eastern sky, the waning crescent moon shone into my window at 3:18 this morning. After an hour, I decided to get up and have a good long visit with this moon. It beckoned me, first through the eastern window from my bed, and, once I yielded, through the south-facing glass slider door by the fishpond.”
“Every morning, I trudge out the side door of the garage and make my way across to the rain gauge posted at the edge of the nearby field. My rain gauge is more than yard art. It is a tool, because the precipitation it measures goes beyond mere curiosity. I have a job to do: to measure and report to a national database what amount of rain or snowfall has arrived to nourish my little patch of land in the past 24 hours.”
“All year, day by day, I’ve torn a page from the 365-day calendar that was a Christmas gift from my brother. The topic? Moths… Before this, I would have said a moth is a moth is a moth. But I feel changed by 2021's daily glimpse into that world, if only because I am driven to wonder, “who came up with all these crazy names?!”
“A man I knew years ago named David Rankin once wrote, “ I refuse to wish away the winter.” I am reminded of his poem whenever someone complains about the weather. How can we really justify wishing away what we have right here, right now, before us? The easy things are a comfort, true, and deserve appreciation. The harder stuff? It always has its own gifts and lessons.”
“[After] starting the final load of laundry… I heard an uncharacteristic thumping sound and fretted distractedly that maybe the washing machine was going on the fritz. “I wonder what that is,” I thought… Something must have fallen into the dirty pile, maybe. As the muffled “thump, thump” continued, my curiosity was nudged a couple of more times, but only vaguely… Stupid washing machine...”
“As summer receded, and the sun on the deck for time with friends backed away from the cocktail hour, and warm layers were increasingly warranted, it occurred to me that we—my circle of friends, all of whom are very COVID-careful—would need a safe gathering place on into the grey tunnel of winter. What better thing, I thought, than a fire circle?”
“Normally, sleep comes easily and lasts well for me. However, for no discernable reason, one night recently, I woke up at 2:15am, and didn’t slumber again until after five o’clock. As soon as I was up for that regular nocturnal bathroom trip, I could tell that I was unusually wide awake.”
