Just because we don’t look for it on these frigid days doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I noticed winter shade on my last walk around Lake Anne. A filigree of darkness in the light. A refuge from glare.
The deciduous trees don’t produce it. They cast a sharp shadow but offer no place to hide. But the hollies and magnolias still make it, the pines and arborvitae, too.
In wintertime, my eye is trained to look for shadows, long and lean, but there is shade, too, a place of safety, even in the cold.
The snow is no longer a rumor; it’s a reality. It’s also buried under the sleet that fell on top of it, pelting it, falling and falling and falling some more. A day’s worth of sleet atop a night’s worth of snow.
Here from my office window I see a world that is cold and white. Not as cold as it will be tomorrow, when we’ll wake up to 3 degrees or some other single digit. Or even as cold as will be later today, when the winds pick up. But cold enough to keep the world white for the next week.
I want to enjoy it, but this is a snow to be endured. Crispy, crusty, and without the softening that winter precipitation can sometimes give a hard, cold landscape.
Yes, I’m continuing to walk slowly, but that’s not why I’m meandering. I’m meandering because I’ve just received the inaugural copy of Meander Magazine, which includes a reprint of a book review I wrote last year.
These days, my essays and reviews appear mostly in online publications because there aren’t many hard-copy magazines being printed. It’s exciting to witness one take shape and land in my mailbox with a satisfying thunk.
Although the dearth of hard-copy publications is good for reducing clutter, I do miss holding a hefty magazine, turning the pages, seeing what delights each new page holds.
Meander’s cover impressed me with its headline, too. “Returning to Place: Embracing reconnection and belonging” — which is what I try to do with my walking and writing. Meander and I are on the same page, you might say. I wish it all the best!
Yesterday, as an experiment, I tried one of my regular walks at an irregularly slow pace. It wasn’t easy, but I promised myself I would do it, so I did.
The route was a familiar one, just two miles round trip. It took me most of an hour — that’s how leisurely I was ambling. It was the pace of a hiker struggling up a mountain, but my trail was mostly level ground.
A pair of young runners rushed by, then a lone jogger in a white jacket. Everyone passed me. But I plodded on at my slow gait.
Being a Kentucky girl, I remembered that the term “slow gait” can be an official one for the artificial gait of the American Saddlebred horse. It means that each of the horse’s feet strikes the ground separately in a measured, steady and highly stylized way. Not at all the way that I was moving!
Though my feet dawdled, my mind roamed far and wide, an inverse relationship. Maybe “not so fast” should be my walking mantra more often.
It’s 14 degrees as I write this post. The furnace is struggling. It’s gonna be another caffeinated day (see post below). But I’m thinking not of the blue sky and the bright sunshine that accompany these frigid temps. I’m thinking about snow and the rumors of snow.
A couple nights ago, someone I had just met casually mentioned “and then there’s the weekend.”
“What about the weekend?” I asked. In the D.C. metro area you never know what might be happening.
“The snowstorm,” she said, and then showed me the weather app on her phone, which displayed a snow icon for Sunday with “18 to 20 inches” beside it.
“Don’t cancel your plans yet,” noted the Capital Weather Gang, my go-to meteorological source. Check us out on Thursday. We’ll know more then.
I will. Until then. I’ll imagine snow and rumors of snow.
(A wan world awaits. From a November 2019 trip to Shenandoah National Park.)
I’m sipping a cup of caffeinated tea as I write this post. I haven’t been doing this much lately. Sipping caffeinated tea, that is.
Some years ago, in an attempt to check the headaches that were plaguing me, I cut caffeine out of my diet. It seemed to help. Although I’ve never drunk coffee, I’ve imbibed in enough high-test tea to expand and contract those blood vessels plenty.
Switching to herbal or decaf teas calmed things down on the vasodilation/vasoconstriction front, so I’ve kept it that way for years. Then I discovered Trader Joe’s cha tea, a caffeinated product, full of spices and flavor. It made my daily cup of decaf taste like brown water. And so the slow slide began.
Or is it a slide? Maybe it’s a return to normalcy. When I gave up caffeine I worked all the time and slept poorly. Things are easier now. Maybe I can sneak in a chai or two. At least that’s what I’m hoping. And so far, so good.
(Detail of a Trader Joe’s chai tea box. No free tea was received in exchange for this review!)
The new governor wore white, to honor the suffragettes who came before her. She was sworn into office with her husband and three daughters by her side. I was touched by the clip I watched of the ceremony. This is the first time in the history of the commonwealth that a woman has taken the reins of power.
But what captured my interest even more is that Governor Spanberger’s three daughters reminded me so much of my own. Not in their ages, mine are all grown up now, but in their spacing and names.
One is named Claire, same as my middle daughter. Another is named Charlotte, same as my niece. And the third is named Catherine, which though not held by anyone in my immediate family is still one of those classic names that I love and which harmonizes so well with the other names Spanberger chose.
I can’t imagine what these girls must have felt watching their mother be inaugurated as Virginia’s first female governor. But I can imagine what it might have been like before the ceremony. Did someone not like the coat she was wearing? Was someone else having a bad hair day?
I mean no disrespect to the solemn transfer of power, but as the mother of three daughters I can’t help but wonder if there was a backstory to Saturday’s festivities. And because the new governor is the mother of these girls, I imagine if there was one, she was attuned to it.
The small birds of winter are much on my mind, the sparrows and chickadees and downy woodpeckers, in part because it iswinter and in part because a new suet block has them flocking to the deck.
The large birds of winter have found their way here, too. Which drives the small birds away. If you’re looking for an avian party-killer, just invite a hawk to lunch.
This robust fellow showed up yesterday, as I was munching on a salad. I knew he was looking for the meat-eater’s special so I kept my eye on him as I finished my greens.
The hawk was seeking prey, of course, watching the small birds like a … well, like a hawk. But he wasn’t the only one laser-focused yesterday. While he was watching the small birds, I was watching him.
Last night I went to Mali. I stepped into a darkened room, found a seat close to the stage, and listened as one of the world’s premier kora players brought forth … a nation.
I know little about African music, had never heard of the kora until a few weeks ago. But a friend did know about this 21-stringed harp-and-lute-like instrument and about virtuoso player Ballaké Sissoko, and he took us to a show that was transporting in every way. One kora sounds like at least two instruments, so full and rich is the sound.
If I closed my eyes I could see the red dirt of the Sahel from a trip through northern Benin with Suzanne 11 years ago. I could feel the Harmattan wind that blows through the region this time of year, the warm sun of the afternoon and the chilliness of the mornings.
At the northernmost terminal of our bus trip, we were near Niger, which borders Mali. That’s as close as I’ve ever been to the country. Until last night.
I didn’t resolve to eat more fruit this new year. But the resolution is emerging anyway, doing an end run around me.
Apples, pears, bananas and clementines have always been a given. And peaches when they’re in season. But now I’m adding blueberries, grapes, kiwi, papaya, mango and strawberries. Fruit salads are more fun, so I’m making more of them.
I’ve always been a vegetable girl. Nothing against fruit, but I never craved it. Something has shifted, though, and I suddenly see the value of sweetening plain yogurt with berries. Or fashioning a salad of papaya and avocado. Or throwing a few blueberries in with the arugula. (Does anyone else hear an old-fashioned car horn when they say this word? A rooo ga lah.)
So along with the perennial “don’t worry so much” and “get more exercise” resolutions, there is another, one I didn’t ask for: Give fruit a chance.
