All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold. ~William Carlos Williams “Winter Trees”
Winter – a quiet, still time for trees, a time for preparation for new attire, a time for root-stretching and branch-reaching.
Unless there are windstorms Unless there is frozen rain Unless there is heavy burden of snowfall
A tree might be taken unawares in the night, branches breaking like popping gunshots, as if innocent prey is hunted.
Remnants lie waiting on the ground, unaware of their brokenness, still budding, hopeful for yet another spring.
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When it snows, he stands at the back door or wanders around the house to each window in turn and watches the weather like a lover. O farm boy, I waited years for you to look at me that way. Now we’re old enough to stop waiting for random looks or touches or words, so I find myself watching you watching the weather, and we wait together to discover whatever the sky might bring. ~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”
My farm boy does still look at me that way, wondering if today will bring frost, damaging hail, a wind storm, a blizzard,
maybe fog or mist, or soft lazy snowflakes, a scorcher, or a deluge.
I reassure him as best I can, because he knows me so well in our many years together:
today, like most other days will be partly cloudy with a snow shower or two and occasional sun breaks.
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May the wind always be in her hair May the sky always be wide with hope above her And may all the hills be an exhilaration the trials but a trail, all the stones but stairs to God. May she be bread and feed many with her life and her laughter May she be thread and mend brokenness and knit hearts… ~Ann Voskamp from “A Prayer for a Daughter”
Nate and Ben and brand new baby LeaDaddy and Lea
Mommy and Lea
“I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is – in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as she was when she was born, when she learned to walk, as she was at any age — at any time, even when the child is fully grown….” ~Diana Gabaldon from Voyager
Just checking to see if she is real…
Your rolling and stretching had grown quieter that stormy winter night thirty-two years ago, but still no labor came as it should. Already a week overdue post-Christmas, you clung to amnion and womb, not yet ready. Then as the wind blew more wicked and snow flew sideways, landing in piling drifts, the roads became more impassable, nearly impossible to traverse.
So your dad and I tried, concerned about your stillness and my advanced age, worried about being stranded on the farm far from town. When a neighbor came to stay with your brothers overnight, we headed down the road and our car got stuck in a snowpile in the deep darkness, our tires spinning, whining against the snow. Another neighbor’s earth mover dug us out to freedom.
You floated silent and still, knowing your time was not yet.
Creeping slowly through the dark night blizzard, we arrived to the warm glow of the hospital, your heartbeat checked out steady, all seemed fine.
I slept not at all.
The morning’s sun glistened off sculptured snow as your heart ominously slowed. You and I were jostled, turned, oxygenated, but nothing changed. You beat even more slowly, threatening to let go your tenuous grip on life.
The nurses’ eyes told me we had trouble. The doctor, grim faced, announced delivery must happen quickly, taking you now, hoping we were not too late. I was rolled, numbed, stunned, clasping your father’s hand, closing my eyes, not wanting to see the bustle around me, trying not to hear the shouted orders, the tension in the voices, the quiet at the moment of opening when it was unknown what would be found.
And then you cried. A hearty healthy husky cry, a welcomed song of life uninterrupted. Perturbed and disturbed from the warmth of womb, to the cold shock of a bright lit operating room, your first vocal solo brought applause from the surrounding audience who admired your purplish pink skin, your shock of damp red hair, your blue eyes squeezed tight, then blinking open, wondering and wondrous, emerging and saved from a storm within and without.
You were brought wrapped for me to see and touch before you were whisked away to be checked over thoroughly, your father trailing behind the parade to the nursery. I closed my eyes, swirling in a brain blizzard of what-ifs.
If no snow storm had come, you would have fallen asleep forever within my womb, no longer nurtured by my aging and failing placenta, cut off from what you needed to stay alive. There would have been only our soft weeping, knowing what could have been if we had only known, if God had provided a sign to go for help.
So you were saved by a providential storm and dug out from a drift: I celebrate when I hear your voice singing- your students love you as their teacher and mentor, you are a thread born to knit and mend hearts, all because of a night of drifting snow.
My annual retelling of the most remarkable day of my life thirty-two years ago today when our daughter Eleanor (“Lea”) Sarah Gibson was born in an emergency C-section, hale and hearty because the good Lord sent a wind and snow storm to blow us into the hospital in time to save her.
She is married to her true love Brian– he is another blessing sent from the Lord. Together they have their own miracle child, happily born in the middle of the summer rather than snow-drift season.
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The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn. ~John Muir
Some sweeping blast may suddenly come o’er us, Lose our place, and turn another leaf! ~Hannah Flagg Gould from “The Whirlwind”
Earth shuddered at my motion, And my power in silence owns; But the deep and troubled ocean O’er my deeds of horror moans! I have sunk the brightest treasure— I’ve destroyed the fairest form— I have sadly filled my measure, And I am now a dying storm. ~Hannah Flagg Gould from “The Dying Storm”
Last night, the Pacific Northwest braced for a “historic” windstorm with unprecedented winds from the east, through the Cascade Mountain passes, rushing to a low pressure system forming in the ocean. The current term for such a storm is a “bomb cyclone,” followed by an “atmospheric river” – ominous descriptions and even more ominous when viewed on satellite images.
The eastern part of Seattle’s King County was hit full force with more than a half million homes left without power last night. It will be a miserable few days for so many in an urban setting as crews try to repair the damage. We live 100 miles to the north and experienced only mild winds, although there was heavy tree fall damage just 15 miles to the south of us in densely wooded Sudden Valley. Our county is usually the focal point for fall and winter windstorms, but we were largely spared this time around.
In anticipation of this storm, the weather services compared it to the historic windstorm on Columbus Day in 1962 which ravaged the region.
I remember that Columbus Day storm vividly as an eight year old living in Olympia, as the wind gusts clocked in at over 140 mph. Large fir trees toppled over like toothpicks in the woods all around our house. The root balls stood 15 feet tall, giant headstones over a mass of tree graves.
Back then, my family’s home, located outside city limits, remained without power for at least a week. We lost all our stored home-grown meat and produce in our freezer and ate only canned goods, boiling water outside on a camp stove under kerosene lights, roasting hot dogs in our fireplace. We slept in sleeping bags under piles of blankets.
This week, when the predictions poured in about a similar strength storm, we readied our farm’s generator and hunkered down, waiting for the monster to storm into our yards and woods.
But the lights only flickered a few times, the winds meager in comparison to our usual fall and winter storms. Our woods, filled with fallen trees from bygone storms, was left untouched this time around.
I’m among the many relieved this morning, having aged past the challenge of living days without power. Today, as so many will be dealing with the messy clean up, my cares have dropped away like the leaves forced to let go in the storm, settling silent to wait for what nature might bring next.
The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain — They are with us like a disease: They worry the heart, they work the brain, As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane, And savage the helpless trees. What does it profit a man to know These tattered and tumbling skies A million stately stars will show, And the ruining grace of the after-glow And the rush of the wild sunrise? ~William Ernest Henley from “The Rain and the Wind”
The rain to the wind said, ‘You push and I’ll pelt.’ They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged – though not dead. I know how the flowers felt. ~Robert Frost “Lodged”
A heavy rain darkened a sodden gray dawn when suddenly unbidden, gusts ripped loose remaining leaves and sent them spinning, swirling earthbound in yellow clouds.
The battering of rain and wind leaves no doubt this is a day of decision – we are resigned to our fate.
I hunker down in the turbulence, tattered and tumbling, and wait for a clear night to empty itself into a fragile crystalline dawn.
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My mother, who hates thunder storms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there; But when the August weather breaks And rains begin, and brittle frost Sharpens the bird-abandoned air, Her worried summer look is lost,
And I her son, though summer-born And summer-loving, none the less Am easier when the leaves are gone Too often summer days appear Emblems of perfect happiness I can’t confront: I must await A time less bold, less rich, less clear: An autumn more appropriate. ~Philip Larkin “Mother, Summer, I”
August rushes by like desert rainfall, A flood of frenzied upheaval, Expected, But still catching me unprepared. Like a match flame Bursting on the scene, Heat and haze of crimson sunsets. Like a dream Of moon and dark barely recalled, A moment, Shadows caught in a blink. Like a quick kiss; One wishes for more But it suddenly turns to leave, Dragging summer away. – Elizabeth Maua Taylor“August”
The endless clear skies of August have been broken with clouds, rain falling in warm gusts, leaves landing on browned ground.
This summer ended up being simply too much – an excess of everything bright and beautiful, meant to make us joyful yet bold and exhausting in its riches.
From endless hours of daylight, to high rising temperatures, to palettes of exuberant clouds to fruitfulness and abundant blooms.
While summer always fills an empty void after enduring cold spare dark days the rest of the year, I still depend on autumn returning.
I welcome darkening times back, knowing how much I miss those drear twilight months of longing for the overwhelming fullness of summer.
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This song and video fits so well today – maybe a little weepy…
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I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path wherever it was taking me, the earth roots beginning to stir. I didn’t intend to start thinking about God, it just happened. How God, or the gods, are invisible, quite understandable But holiness is visible, entirely. It’s wonderful to walk along like that, thought not the usual intention to reach an answer but merely drifting. Like clouds that only seem weightless. but of course are not. Are really important. I mean, terribly important. Not decoration by any means. By next week the violets will be blooming.
Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain. What was it actually about?
Think about what it is that music is trying to say. It was something like that. ~Mary Oliver “Drifting”from Blue Horses
Wet things smell stronger, and I suppose his main regret is that he can sniff just one at a time. In a frenzy of delight he runs way up the sandy road— scored by freshets after five days of rain. Every pebble gleams, every leaf.
When I whistle he halts abruptly and steps in a circle, swings his extravagant tail. Then he rolls and rubs his muzzle in a particular place, while the drizzle falls without cease, and Queen Anne’s lace and Goldenrod bend low.
The top of the logging road stands open and light. Another day, before hunting starts, we’ll see how far it goes, leaving word first at home. The footing is ambiguous.
Soaked and muddy, the dog drops, panting, and looks up with what amounts to a grin. It’s so good to be uphill with him, nicely winded, and looking down on the pond.
A sound commences in my left ear like the sound of the sea in a shell; a downward, vertiginous drag comes with it. Time to head home. I wait until we’re nearly out to the main road to put him back on the leash, and he —the designated optimist— imagines to the end that he is free. ~Jane Kenyon “After an Illness, Walking the Dog”
This morning’s drizzly walk and every surface is baptized with gentle, loving sprinkles from God. It reminds us how visible is our holiness; His covering grace makes us free.
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When it snows, he stands atthe back door or wanders around the house to each window in turn and watches the weather like a lover. O farm boy, I waited years for you to look at me that way. Now we’re old enough to stop waiting for random looks or touches or words, so I find myself watching you watching the weather, and we wait together to discover whatever the sky might bring. ~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”
My farm boy does still look at me that way, wondering if today will bring frost, a wind storm, maybe fog or mist, a scorcher, or a deluge.
I reassure him as best I can, because he knows me so well in our many years together:
today, like most other days, I predict I will be partly cloudy with a chance of showers, and as always, occasional sun breaks.
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January’s drop-down menu leaves everything to the imagination: splotch the ice, splice the light, remake the spirit…
Just get on with it, doing what you have to do with the gray palette that lies to hand. The sun’s coming soon.
A future, then, of warmth and runoff, and old faces surprised to see us. A cache of love, I’d call it, opened up, vernal, refreshed. ~Sidney Burris “Runoff”
photo of hair ice taken by Laura Reifel
When the calendar finally reaches this last day of January, resplendent in its grayest pallor, I have to realize there are six weeks of winter yet ahead.
This past month, nature offered many options on the drop-down menu. Take your pick: soupy foggy mornings, drizzly mid-days, crisp northeast winds with sub-zero wind chill, unexpected snow dumps with icy rain, balmy southerlies with flooding, too many soggy soppy puddly evenings.
Every once in awhile there was a special on the menu: icy spikes on grass blades, frozen droplets on birch branches, hair ice on wood, crystallized weeds like jewelry in the sun, a pink flannel blanket sunrise, an ocean-of-orange sunset.
I realize January’s gray palette is merely preparation for what comes next. There is Love cached away, and as spring is slowly revealed, it will not let me go.
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Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, its white flag waving over everything, the landscape vanished, not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered, schools and libraries buried, the post office lost under the noiseless drift, the paths of trains softly blocked, the world fallen under this falling.
In a while, I will put on some boots and step out like someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts, and I will shake a laden branch sending a cold shower down on us both.
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house, a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow. I will make a pot of tea and listen to the plastic radio on the counter, as glad as anyone to hear the news
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed, the Ding-Dong School, closed. the All Aboard Children’s School, closed, the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed, along with—some will be delighted to hear—
the Toadstool School, the Little School, Little Sparrows Nursery School, Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed, and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.
So this is where the children hide all day, These are the nests where they letter and draw, where they put on their bright miniature jackets, all darting and climbing and sliding, all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
And now I am listening hard in the grandiose silence of the snow, trying to hear what those three girls are plotting, what riot is afoot, which small queen is about to be brought down. ~Billy Collins “Snow Day”
Two posts in one day! This winter storm deserves documentation…
Thanks to a snow day here in the Pacific Northwest, everyone is grounded and homebound except the hungry birds who have completely cleaned out my seed and suet supply. They stare at me accusingly through the window so I have tossed them a loaf of sourdough bread to pick away at.
Some would say that retirement seems like a snow day everyday and they aren’t too far wrong. The difference is that usually I’m not slogging through drifting snow to get to my barn chores so my work is a little more onerous on days like this. I don’t mind too much if it is only a day or two.
So we’re hunkered down for the duration. Here’s hoping you are safe and warm and enjoying the view wherever you may be on this wintry day.
The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. ~Robert Frost “Dust of Snow”
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