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bucket filling
I really limped into the homestretch of the weekend – it was a long week of hard work. There was a “three states in one day and back” kind of day, and a “going away party for a Japanese friend” kind of day, and a “kindergarten Valentine’s day party” kind of day. And this weekend I find myself alone, which is a bit anxiety-producing but more than likely a much-needed respite and an excuse to be as ridiculously lazy as I can possibly be. In kindergarten they teach the concept of bucket-filling – filling other’s buckets with kindness, and filling your own with things that make you happy. It’s a kind of private magic to have a good stretch of time to just be quiet, to drift around the house cleaning and thinking and not talking, watering plants and doing little projects and refilling birdfeeders and falling asleep whenever I want and trying new recipes. It leaves me feeling a little stronger, my light shining a little more brightly.
I have a stack of new books from the library – I love it and hate it when everything on my reserve list comes in at once, such pressure – and there are some awesomely bad old movies on the movie channel to look forward to, including the piece de resistance, The Gorgon, a masterpiece of schlock. I just read this which I wanted to share. I have a raggedy old chair and some milk paint in case I feel motivated enough for a project, and I have two boyfriends with stripes, whiskers, and paws to keep me company. Posing beautifully with books is just one of the things they’re good at.
hold on
I read somewhere that you shouldn’t talk about weather on your blog, but I think that’s only for people who actually believe that other people read their blogs (which I don’t) and anyway, it’s kind of the only thing to talk about around these parts right now. My weeks have been reduced to sleeping, driving (sometimes up to 2 hours or more one way), working, driving, eating. Every day dawns in some repetition of slate grey arctic cold, more snow or wind chills. I know, we live in Michigan, what do we expect? I guess I would expect that the schools would be able to function in these conditions. Tons of snow days and more to come, not always because of snow but also because of subzero wind chills. Safety first, I suppose, but at this rate Snoop will be in kindergarten until July, and for working parents, it’s just no joke to have to accommodate this kind of situation.
With the lack of routine, my fitness has fallen off, I have a brand new pair of beautiful Mizuno Wave Rider 17s that haven’t come out of the box yet. I hate running on a treadmill, there’s just no joy in it, and the temps and deep snow and ice have made it inadvisable to try to run outside, even for a runner who vastly prefers and enjoys cold running, like me. We eat well, lots of vegetables and fruits thanks to our weekly organic produce deliveries, but I’m taking a multivitamin supplement to help with my D3 levels and trying to drink fizzy vitamin / mineral supplement packets a few times a week as well. I haven’t been outside long enough to get sufficient vitamin D, I’m sure. I’m trying to respect the body’s natural tendency towards dormancy during the dark months and reading some good advice on how to work with that, especially from This Original Organic Life and Portland Apothecary.
We are trying to do fun, small things and enjoy the world around us as always. I try to treat myself to the shows I love on TV – Sherlock and Downton Abbey are back, as is Justified, Sleepy Hollow finished with a cliffhanger – and trips to local places new and old. Ikea is great for a day of overwhelming amazingness and frantic consumerism in the best possible way.
Last night we visited a Japanese market and sushi bar (in the middle of another snowstorm, natch) and Snoop used chopsticks for the first time. We loved looking at the new textures and colors and foods, browsing up and down the aisles.
There are swimming lessons for the little one and nights with the furry boys in front of the fireplace.
And even though it feels impossible, every day gets a bit longer and we are tilting back inevitably toward the sun, hold on.
tchaikovsky and poirot
Everyone is much happier with sunshine and milder temps today, including the Northern yellow-shafted flicker who visits us occasionally. I think his mustaches make him look like Hercule Poirot.
I think 2014 will be a good year for trying new things and expanding my horizons. I started last night with my first trip to the symphony. I’m not such a huge Tchaikovsky fan, I decided, but I loved the experience of live classical music and am looking forward to more such trips. I liked getting dressed up and watching the musicians utterly absorbed in their craft, the energy of the conductor, the way the harpist held her wrist, and the fidgety second violinist who kept yawning and stretching his long legs and flicking imaginary bits of fluff off his tuxedo.
it’s something, i guess
So I laughed when the Weather Channel starting talking about a polar vortex, and I laughed when panicked shoppers deluged the grocery stores and picked the aisles clean. Come on. We live in Michigan. Expect this weather. You don’t need to buy out Meijer’s and line up at gas stations and ram each other’s cars and carts for a three-day snowfall.
But winter storm Ion pretty much sucked. Schools cancelled, subzero Fahrenheit temps. Swapping child care duties for a cabin feverish five year old who actually surprised us by keeping herself (and two wild teenage cats) pretty constructively occupied for several days.
We were very lucky, all things considered. We live in town, so we had some degree of plowing out every day. We had plenty of food and we were able to manage Snoop’s off days by balancing our schedules and working together as a team. We didn’t have any damage to our roof or property, we kept power, and our pipes stayed intact. We also stayed safe and healthy and managed to keep out of the ditches while we were driving.
However, the resulting annoyance and inconvenience factor for my commute to Ann Arbor was considerable. The roads were icy and visibility impaired, lots of snow, spinouts, accidents. One morning I spent two hours and twenty minutes trying to get to work; I had a meeting, checked in with people, took care of some tasks, and turned around to drive back, so I could work from home for the afternoon shift with Snoop.
Back roads were no time saver, but as my fellow agitated commuters and I crept along country roads in a long traffic line, going about twenty five mph, I did see some lovely snowy landscapes, which is something, I guess. I started a photography series on Instagram titled, “Images from a Horrible Commute, In Which the Hapless Photographer Unwisely Took the Back Roads.” I’m sure I will have several other additions for this series by the time spring rolls around.
And once I actually reached the office, there were occasionally some nice glimpses out of my office window of the sun coming up through icy trees. Which is also something, I guess.
By the end of the week, we were all pretty worn out and ready for a Friday night spent in bed, under heaps of blankets, with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.
winter shades
in marked contrast to previous winters, where i was able to run outside very regularly throughout december and january, we’ve been experiencing a cold winter in southeastern michigan. yesterday, it snowed all day, and by evening the world was lovely and blue; today, it is shades of black and white, the wind is sharp and bitter cold.
i was scheduled to work today, but i took one look outside and decided another vacation day was in order.
i shall return to the real world tomorrow. in the meantime, i’ll be here in bed with a diana wynne jones book, and the new york philharmonic on detroit public television. the kittens like classical music and get drowsy to the sound of a good mellow trombone.
till the summer comes again
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Mid-Michigan received a wallop of ice before Christmas that rendered most of my hometown without power for the holiday. I am not sure how everyone managed to stay warm and make the holiday bright for their families. I always imagine myself living in past times but I know how completely unable I am to deal with any loss of my mod cons, so perhaps the London Blitz and I wouldn’t have been the best fit.
I drove up there on Christmas Eve day. I don’t get back there very often; our family has mainly decamped and scattered. The soundtrack once you get through Perry, up on M-52, is mostly country western or Christian stations or, as I found, classic rock, and so, to a soundtrack that was right out of my formative years, I wended my way north of the fields. I found it quiet and still and frozen, no sound except the creaking of ice in the wind-stirred trees, and legions of power trucks from all over the Midwest coming to the rescue. The sun was blinding and I wanted to stop every five minutes to photograph the cornfields and the hedgerows and the barns, the beautiful old barns and tumbled stone walls, all coated in silver.
It was undeniably beautiful to look at.
Downstate, we thankfully missed the ice, but got enough snow on Christmas and Boxing Day to make it a beautiful winter wonderland.
days merry and bright
“More evident from high latitudes, a hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun’s daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest.The winter solstice itself lasts only a moment in time, so other terms are used for the day on which it occurs, such as “midwinter”, or “the shortest day”. For the same reason, it should not be confused with “the first day of winter” or “the start of winter” (Lidong in the East Asian calendars). The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days…
Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied from culture to culture, but many cultures have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.”
I’ve been on the struggle bus this holiday season, and as the days have gone on I’ve seen a few of my friends filing on board with me. It’s not a conscious sadness; it’s more the pervasive pressure of Happiness All Around that makes me feel like it’s more under scrutiny and thus more expected. Lights! Trees! Presents! Food! Music! Are you happy yet??! Well for God’s sake WHY NOT?
I think I’d prefer to just observe the solstice this year, the knowledge that the world always tilts back eventually, the simple appreciation of the balance between light and dark.
One of my colleagues sent my (very small) department to a spa afternoon earlier this week and it’s a luxurious joy to have a pretty manicure, and glowing skin from a facial & massage. Unfortunately, the spa was in the basement of a grand Detroit casino and hotel, and my tolerance for casinos has completely faded since the days where I got married in one. Just walking through the land of smoke and slot machines, a world where time never seems to go anywhere, made me feel uneasy and oppressed by the weight of thousands of unmet expectations.
I saw this quote on Facebook the other day, and loved it.
I think it’s my new mantra for 2014.
Otherwise, I am just looking for small moments of peace in the days, and trying to soak up the people and the things that fill my bucket, as my baby girl would say. It turns out there are lots of them. Not just in my own life, but in the blogs I read and the feeds I love on Instagram.
It’s raining today, and there are winter weather warnings all over the state. I wouldn’t get near a big box store or the mall to save my life today. So it may just be a walk downtown to investigate the little knitting shop to see if I can buy local.
thanksgiving
after grey cat died in my arms on the antiseptic table at a vet’s office, i cried with my head against a wall and felt more alone than i ever had in my entire life, the breath of my good loyal friend gone from the world, no longer her big gold eyes watching over me, padding quietly after me wherever i went, blessing me with her watchful and completely selfless love for sixteen years. i knew i would get another cat, but i didn’t think it would be so soon. however, fate, as it will, intervened, and the addition of the kittens to the house has been so welcome. they are, to put it bluntly, crazy; i’d forgotten the mischief that two kittens can cause. falling into bathtubs, playing endlessly with jingling furry feathery toys, scaling bookshelves, chasing each other’s tails, walking across computer keyboards, dragging little girl pajamas into litter boxes…collapsing into exhausted naps like the babies they are, purring and purring and purring.
last night i dreamed of being lost trying to find my way somewhere, but not alarmingly so; just more confused than i had thought i should be to get where i was going, lost on backstreets and taking trams via a circuitous route, seeing things i hadn’t expected to see, but never entirely fearful that i wouldn’t get where i was going. then i was on a beach in australia looking in cottage windows at a happy family and feeling happy for them; then i was with people who are very important to me, trying to quickly enjoy their presence and trying not do anything to scare them off, or that would make the moments end. i woke up this morning and came downstairs to snow falling, and when i turned on the radio, rhapsody in blue was on wrcj. i tend to celebrate with food, so i made hazelnut coffee and cranberry orange scones and thought about fairy tales and read some blogs. it’s thanksgiving.
i never used to think much more about thanksgiving except that it was a great holiday for eating. it is, of course, that, but somehow this year it is different for me. somewhere this year i learned about gratitude; there’s something about losing many things in your life that you thought were unloseable that can make you extremely appreciative for the other things in your life that still manage to be awesome. yesterday, in my work cafeteria, a girl i barely know called over the salad bar to me that i should enjoy my holiday, how excited she was for hers, she and her family had already started the food preparations, and the holiday is all about family. it kind of hit me, over the salad bar, how surrounded i was at that moment by so many people who are full of love and happiness and togetherness and joy, and i’m somehow a strange part of that too, and can find it in the most unexpected places. it’s always there, even when it seems to have entirely faded from view. old things leave and new things appear and in the midst of that turmoil and constant change there is always something to feel grateful for, and now at the age of forty i understand what thanksgiving is really about.
all the best to you and yours.
Six Ten 