It’s lighter longer, but the sun still slouches low in the sky these January afternoons. So before it’s too late, I shoot winter shadows.
The posts, lattice work and vines make a delicate tracery on the siding. A monochrome reflection of an already color-stripped world.
Even the errant string of Christmas lights that dangles, unkempt, from the crossbeam looks elegant in reverse.
When the wind blows, the shadows wag in the fading light.
Cold air and snow drive the wild things closer to civilization. A bluejay perches on the rim of a wrought iron chair, pecks at the peeling paint, fluffs his feathers — his broad back to the window, a flick of his beak then he’s gone.
Minutes later, a fox trots across the yard, sleek, rangy, in no hurry as he makes his way to the woods. Searching for food, for small animals driven out of hiding.
And yesterday, on the way to the post office, I saw three vultures tearing at a dead deer beside the road.
We may mulch our gardens, mow our lawns and prune our trees. But the animals know we are just visitors here.
After six months of phone conversations only I received my first real email communication from Suzanne this morning.
“I’m writing to you from the bustling metropolis of Kandi,” she began. And it must seem like a bustling metropolis to her, living in a village without electricity and running water. On the other hand, she intended irony. After all, she’s a child of the suburbs, grew up in the shadow of our nation’s capital, can maneuver a van around the Beltway at rush hour if need be.
Now, she travels on foot, bike, moto or bush taxi.
Seeing her message makes me want to drop everything, hop a jet to Cotonou and bush-taxi myself right up north to Kandi.
I won’t, of course. Not yet, anyway. This is her world now. I write about it only to remark on how the written word brings her new life to us in such a special, immediate way. Words winging their way from one world to another with the stroke of a key.
After several futile forecasts yielding nothing, we woke up this morning to a white world. Not quite an inch yet but it’s still falling and roads are cold enough that every flake is sticking.
Maybe weather-watchers knew this snow was on the way, but I didn’t, so I felt like a kid this morning when I glanced outside, saw the white coating on the deck, the flurries in the air. For just a minute I felt that leap in the heart: No school today! No school!
And then I remembered: I don’t go to school anymore. I go to work. And yes, we are having work today.
(We didn’t receive quite this much! This is an old photo…)
No masks yet; we haven’t come to that. But I flinch from my Metro seatmate, who hacks his way through the long ride in from Vienna. And I touch as little as possible, pressing a glove, or a sleeve or a paper towel into duty.
At church they announced a temporary hiatus of the common cup (a bizarre tradition anyway; other faiths, with their individual thimbles of wine, are more rational about this) and asked us to respect those who choose not to shake hands during the sign of peace.
In my pew no one shook hands. Was everyone sick? Did everyone think I was sick? Or was this the excuse we’ve all been waiting for? A retreat into private prayer.
Cold and flu season makes one thing clear: non-communication is contagious.
We seem to live in a world based more and more on choice — what we read, hear, taste and see is preset to our likes and dislikes. News online instead of from a newspaper. Music from an iPod instead of a radio.
I thought of this on a recent long drive when I had only the radio for company. Suddenly I wasn’t in charge. The airwaves were. Depending upon the angle of my antenna and the pitch of the road I could be listening to a Chopin Nocturne or a local sports call-in show. Sometimes I was listening to both at once!
But the airwaves were kind to me that day. It was morning in the mountains of Kentucky when I heard Brahms’ Second Symphony and afternoon in the mountains of West Virginia when I heard Brahms’ First.
There they were — and not because I had bought and stored them in an mp3 file. (I already have them, in fact.) They were gifts from thin air, music at random — and all the sweeter because of it.
Lately at lunch I’ve taken to walking around the Capitol. It’s only a few minutes from my office and I can stroll around it in 20 minutes or so, perfect if I don’t have much time.
The place has no bad angles. It’s grand and imposing no matter how it is viewed. The dome (finished 150 years ago; its completion of great importance to President Lincoln, a metaphor for uniting the divided country) is at its best against a blue sky. But even on cloudy winter days the building has its charms.
In the last two months I’ve watched as the West Front platform has been built, the fences have gone up and the chairs been arranged. The people’s place? Not exactly.
I’ll be glad when the inauguration is behind us and ordinary citizens can walk around the Capitol again.
It’s one of the colder mornings of the year, but the birds don’t seem to notice. They’re rustling about in the azalea bushes, flitting from branch to branch of the denuded oaks.
They harken to some older signal, some lengthening of the day, some freshening of the wind.
They seem to think it’s spring, or at least the beginning of it.
Who am I to disagree?
Because the real thing continues to elude us. Because we are either too far south, too far east or (this time) too far north. (Hard to wrap my head around that one.)
Because the last time we had two inches of snow was almost two years ago, here is a picture of what it was like in the old days.
We have more than virtual snow, however. We have that acrid taste in the air when snow is near. And we have the cold air behind the front. Cold air that pushed the clouds away and gave us back the sun.
If days were colors, Thursday would be yellow. The bright spot at the end of the week. Not yet Friday, but all the better — Friday still to come.
By Thursday, work is effortless. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are just practice. Thursday is the real thing.
By Thursday, the week is almost over, but there is still room for improvement.
By Thursday, caution is not recommended. It’s a full-stop operation. Do or die.
Is there some ancient prejudice that inclines me toward this day. Or something in my own history? A favorite class? A special route? A piano lesson?
Or is it just that I’d rather anticipate anticipation?