The days grow shorter as the to-do list grows longer. I lift my head from work to find the sun so low in the sky that I give up on running errands for the day. I can venture out tomorrow, when it will, of course, be dark even earlier.
Not for nothing do we light our lamps, place candles in our windows, drape trees with brilliant garlands. It’s time to remind ourselves that we will not always have nine hours of daylight and monochrome landscapes. That there will come a time when twilights will linger till almost 10 and the world will burst with color again.
But for now, nothing to do but pull on the wool socks, the ear-warmers, the gloves, the buff. Take a deep breath, plunge into the cold air and breathe deeply. This will not last forever. Nor will we.
The front-page headline caught my eye, and I couldn’t stop reading. In 1999, Britain’s Karl Bushby decided to walk an unbroken path around the world. He sketched out the route on a piece of paper and started his journey of … what, a million steps, ten million, I have no idea.*
It began with a bar room bet and became an obsession, and now his 27-year, 31,000-mile expedition is in its final months. He just entered Hungary and has less than 1,000 miles to go. If all goes according to plan he will reach his hometown of Hull, England, next September.
Bushby started his walk in Punta Arenas, Chile in 1998, when he was 27 years old. Now 56, he’s given a huge chunk of his adulthood to this project. But from the sound of it, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You need to see how the world really is, and the people who are living in it,” he told the Washington Post. “It’s one of the best educations you’ll get.”
Bushby’s journey has taken him from the southern tip of South America, through the treacherous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, through North America to the Bering Strait. He crossed this on his first try, navigating ice and frigid water, only to be arrested in Russia for entering at an incorrect border.
In another leg of his journey, he swan across the Caspian Sea to avoid entering Russia again. That took 31 days. He rested at night on support boats. (Although he began the trip with only $500, he gained notoriety and sponsors along the way.)
“I’ve had to do every inch of this thing by either walking or swimming,” Bushby said. “Every time I stop, I have to start from that point and continue.” When he began, he walked 19 miles a day. Now he walks 15.
Bushby said the main lesson he’s learned is that the “world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.” Over and over again he’s been rescued by the kindness of strangers. “The world will wrap itself around you and help you achieve things and keep you moving,” he said. “It’s been absolutely astounding.”
*That would be 13.5 million to 16 million steps, AI informs me.
Over the weekend I had two very different kinds of shopping experiences. Yesterday I took a deep breath and went to the mall, lured by sales. The day before I visited a local crafts fair and my favorite used bookstore —- both located at Reston’s Lake Anne.
There, I met and chatted with the artisans who made the bowls and plates, who wove the textiles, who published the children’s books. There I chatted, laughed and snapped pictures as holiday-makers awaited Santa’s arrival by paddle boat. (I missed Santa but caught the Grinch, who was causing a ruckus in the crowd above.)
I’m not a big shopper, but I have many presents to buy. This year, I’m trying to make the process as much fun as possible. Shopping local helps.
It may not last long, so I’m writing quickly, but as I type these words it is snowing in Virginia, or at least my part of it. The flakes are big and wet, which gives us a lovely snow globe effect.
This isn’t a blizzard or even a complete coating. Ground cover peeks around the base of the witch hazel tree. (See real-time backyard photo above.) And yellow buses ply the street behind me. It won’t be a completely paralyzed weather day, which is just as well.
But given the paucity of snow around here, having white stuff on the ground this early in the season feels like a gift. And until it all melts away (unlikely, given the cold temps we have in store), I’m treating it as one.
(Two snow pictures in a row … but they’re very different!)
This time of year we’re all hoping for a visitor from the North Pole. I’m talking about Saint Nick, though, not the polar vortex. But, at least for now, the polar vortex is what we’re getting. It’s swooping down from Nunavut Canada, bound for the Midwest and Northeast United States. And it’s ready for action, prepared to break records.
My Capital Weather Gang site tells me that 80 million people in 35 states may have temperatures in the single digits over the weekend.
The last few days, this walker in the suburbs has piled on layers and pulled on hat and gloves. Temps have barely broken 40. Not bad for winter in some places, but not here, where we’ve gotten used to balmier climes.
At least I no longer live in Chicago, where snow has already fallen, making it even harder for days to warm. I have seasonal PTSD from living there for six years. I supply a photo from that era to prove my point. I think I spent an entire winter in a polar vortex … and it wasn’t pretty.
No secret that I love to travel. But I also love to talk about travel. Yesterday a friend and long-ago roommate called to share tales of our recent adventures. She had just explored South Africa and Namibia. I had seen France, Belgium and the Netherlands since we last talked.
She had warned me about the bicycles in Amsterdam. I told her that now I understand. She tried to explain the grandeur of game drives. I tried to describe the charm of an Alsatian village.
At some point in our conversation I realized that it’s not the travel itself, it’s the way it makes us feel — or at least the way it makes me feel, which is alive and free.
Once, my friend and I trudged down snow-packed Chicago streets to buy groceries as we started our careers in a cold and busy city. Now we have different destinations.
It’s not that trip talk satisfies as much as travel itself, but it certainly brightens up a cold winter evening.
I know that it’s 2025, almost 2026, but in my imagination it’s 249 years earlier. The founding fathers have drafted and approved the Declaration of Independence, but the excitement of that pronouncement has faded with the horror and tedium of war. Washington and his troops are preparing to cross the icy Delaware. The fate of our nation hangs in the balance.
I just finished reading The British Are Coming, the first part of Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Rick Atkinson’s Revolutionary War trilogy. I learned that the war for independence lasted more than eight years and took more American lives than any conflict except the Civil War, with which it had much in common, since brother fought brother.
Meanwhile, I’ve been watching the Ken Burns et. al. documentary “The American Revolution,” which features Atkinson as a talking head. I’m imbibing a double dose of American history — learning about the brutality, the geopolitical maneuvering, the difficulties and the costs.
But I’m also appreciating again the remarkable achievement of the American experiment. Though conceived in violence, slavery and the hostile takeover of native lands, the founding of our nation led to something unique in human history, something “epochal and enduring,” in Atkinson’s words: “the creation of the American republic. Surely among mankind’s most remarkable achievements.” It was revolutionary, you might say.
Surely there is nobility in these early days of winter. Bare trees reach heavenward, their trunks a model of verticality. Nothing is wasted or feigned.
My eyes seek the green of ground covers and firs, the splash of morning light on a tall oak. They look for color in December’s pale grays and blues. They find something else, something leaden and true, what winter reveals, which is the essence of things.
It’s a new month, winter’s first. I feel its power in my bones.
They are unfairly maligned to be sure, these remnants of yesterday’s feasts. Put away by tired plate-clearers and dish-washers, they rest in every cranny of the refrigerator.
What will become of them? I know what will happen to mine. One of my favorite meals in the world is a turkey sandwich. I will be eating as many of those as I can the next few days.
Also in my fridge is an entire casserole dish of untouched stuffing. There were three of them yesterday, and this one was never put out.
As for the Brussel sprouts salad (loaded with apple, pomegranate seeds, dried cranberries and roasted almonds), that will be savored as long as possible.
The best part of leftovers is how easy they’ll make tonight’s dinner.
The pie is baked and the salad is made. The turkey is thawed and awaits its roasting. I have celery to chop, onions too, all for the dressing that needs to be assembled and baked. This will be a crazier Thanksgiving than usual, held not here but at my daughter’s house a few miles away. My parents’ dining room table is there, and so is a rambunctious young family.
So after prepping for the feast here, we’ll move the food to another house and another room, what my grandson calls the “diving room.”
It’s incredibly cute, the things kids say, and worthy of remembering and repeating. But in fact, “diving room” makes a certain kind of sense. Sometimes on this day I feel like I must dig deep to find the gratitude. This year, not so much. This year the “thanks” part of Thanksgiving is all around me. Whenever I have a minute, I plan to bask in it.
