{cheddar + pumpkin seed crisps, for soup // odd jars + maine flours + heavy rotation cookbooks // summer, forever ago // holding tight // a granola bar-ish thing, ready for travel // baked brown rice pudding, pre baking, lots of nutmeg, butter, etc}
Yesterday we walked,
Falling,
From above-the-snow
To calf-deep-in-it-
a winter cadence both familiar and surprising.
But in the mornings,
Bent over jam and cream mottled oatmeal,
I have become acutely aware of a turn toward spring.
The driveway remains a treacherous ice-scape;
A bitter wind presses against the inextinguishable prayer of moving a slumbering babe from car to house,
Her sleep intact;
We are expecting Snow-
Then More Snow after that.
But the light!
The first of spring to arrive,
A harbinger of rural hillside awakenings,
Its beams sliding in sideways through old windows barely earning their keep.
Resplendent.
(There is no better word for it!)
Spilling and dripping
Her golden frame onto the kitchen floor,
the
light
come
home.
{flourless chocolate cake with cream in need of shaking and last summer's black raspberry jam // mittens, thumbless since last spring, Gus says it could be a "style", though they have since been given thumbs // cream, shaken // at the sink // pants in progress, funny- I worried they would be too big // rolling candles for dinner, a friend}
Snow is coming down at a proper slant right now through curving power lines, through the crooked outstretched arms of the old pines that stand guard out front. I'm here, inside, pitting the wood stove and humidifier against one another, surprised by it all. Did I know this snow was coming?
What I'd like, I think, is to spin myself a cocoon this winter. The walls will be cream and glittery gold, and smell faintly of warmed beeswax. Gillian Welch will sing oh little red bird.. and everything loved is there, safe and sure. I think in that cocoon this woman shaped raw nerve that I am will curl up and fall fast asleep, contented by relief.
The snow's now falling in dizzying lines across the living room windows; the baby wheezily snores in the corner, her cheeks two perfect apples perched upon her heaving chest.
{honey dog on the old rag rug // the ample rump of a growing pair of little gal leggings // white pine, lemon, garlic // white pine, lemon, garlic + honey, in a warm spot // rye shortbread cookies // a newly finished flaum cardigan}
In favor of literally everything else, I have for the time being stepped away from the internet in its shortest form, picture+breezycaptionadinfinitum. I love the internet. I love all my dear friends I have found through the internet. But- better ways to say it escaping me - the internet is a god damn thief, and I don't love that. Time thief, joy thief, creativity thief, focus thief, and on and on. So here we are, in a self-imposed exile that has finished sweaters and rye cookies and me sitting down to write.
It's really nice. Quiet.
One of our dogs sits so close to the wood stove that her whiskers are singed. She lays on the hearth, head sometimes resting on the stove itself, and pants and pants and pants. We joke she would climb inside if we left the door open, never having found too much of A Good Thing. Sometimes I feel like that dog, lapping up internet heat- loving it loving it loving it, while it burns me up in a million different ways.
