This morning I write from my office, overlooking the alley I described yesterday. My desk is positioned so that I look out not only into the alley but into the street beyond. On this cold day walkers scurry in and out of my line of sight. A man with a hand truck crosses the street, a bike messenger zooms along with the traffic, pilgrims shuffle to Starbucks. Everyone is hooded, gloved and booted. There is little color in this world; it is monochrome this morning. But it is moving. A world of swirling shapes in gray and black.
I’ve always liked alleys. It may simply be a continuation of my love for narrow streets. Or it may be because alleys are alternative universes, passages that take you behind the scenes. The front of a house or store is what the owners would like you to see; the alley provides another glimpse — the dirty laundry (sometimes literally). In an alley you see the garbage cans, the old car, the rusty rake or shovel (or, in the case of the photo above, a window on moving day).
Unlike wide thoroughfares, alleys are cozy for the walker. You feel nicely held in by them. They are comforting. Unless they are dangerous, which of course they sometimes are.
My office window faces an alley. It’s a broad, well-lit alley, as alleys go, a working passage with a small loading dock. When my office suddenly goes dark I know it’s either because the sun has gone behind a cloud or the UPS truck is making a delivery. My alley isn’t dangerous, but questionable characters have been known to wander there and do things they wouldn’t do out in the open.
Ice coats the streets, sidewalks and cars. Schools are closed. It’s time for fantasy travel. Today we visit Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. It’s a misty July afternoon and the roses are still blooming. Daylilies and larkspur are thriving. The air is so perfumed and moist that walking through it feels like an instant facial.
After a stroll under the rose arbor into the Japanese garden, you find a little tea shop, sip a cup of Earl Gray and sample a scone or two. Then you wander some more. You snap photos, lots of photos. You gather all sorts of ideas for your garden back home — then you realize that none of them will work because you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest. But you feel good just for imagining what might have been.
Some religions have household gods, mostly beneficent (occasionally mischievous) beings who look over the house and bless it with their presence. For nine years we have had such a creature in our house — our parakeet, Hermes, who died Saturday. He had never known a day of sickness and lived a most happy life. And because of him, we were happier, too.
When we bought Hermes for $17 from the local pet store, Suzanne was in seventh grade and had hours to spend with the baby bird. She coaxed him gently onto her finger, moving her hand ever so slowly up to her face so she could look at him eye to eye. His little striped head bobbed up and down as he sidestepped back and forth on her finger. Suzanne liked to mother Hermes and every night would read him the story “Goodnight Moon.” Before he was a year old, Hermes began saying the words “goodnight” and “moon.” Later, more confident, he strung together “goodnight” with “Hermes.” Soon he added new words to his repertoire, “I love you” and “good morning.”
Our house was livelier in those days. The phone was forever ringing, the radio was blaring, children were bouncing balls and skating through the kitchen. All was chaos and Hermes was in his heaven, bobbing above it all in a wire cage suspended from the ceiling.
The children grew up and entered their own lives, but Hermes remained, talking, singing and sneezing (he learned to mimic a human sneeze — apparently we sneeze so much that he thought it was our call). Hermes chirped when he heard the garage or front door open, or when the water was running in the sink. All these noises he knew intimately, because they brought people to his side — his flock, his family.
Maybe it’s because he could talk, but there was just something about Hermes, the way he cooed when we were close together, his intellect and his emotions, that made us love him all the more. And he was such a plucky little guy. Even his last day with us he was still chirping and sneezing and ringing his bell. Hermes weighed only a few ounces but he filled the house with his love. It is quiet without him.
Because of Hermes, I have a higher opinion of all animals, especially parakeets. Because of him, I listen carefully to the sounds of our house. Because of him, I have developed the habit of looking up. Hermes lived longer than I ever dreamed he would. But he didn’t live long enough.
Most mornings I sit down to write a post with very little idea of what I will say. But last night I decided to write about the snow cover, how this week only one state out of our 50, Florida, did not have it.
But when I started to write this morning I thought about the sad events of last Saturday, what our country has been through this week, the questions we have been asking ourselves. I make it a point not to cover political and social topics in this blog, but still, with all this on my mind, did I really want to write about the weather?
So I sat and I thought, and I moved to a quiet corner of the house where I could think better, and I decided … to write about the snow cover. About the planet that looks so serene and blue from space, and how it would look if a large chunk of it was gleaming white.
I know the snow is sparse in some of the southern states (including our own). I know it would barely make a difference if viewed from on high. I also know that our lovely blue planet is anything but placid.
Many remember to feed the birds; Tom remembers to water them. He rigged up a bowl of water on top of a covered light bulb, which provides just enough heat to keep the water from freezing.
The birds vote with their feet, er, wings. They fly here from all over the neighborhood, mostly junkos and jays this morning, but other types on other days. Our backyard is an avian watering hole, with all the chirps and flappings and quiet busyness that entails. So much for suet and thistle. In this frozen season birds need liquid sustenance, too. They cannot survive on seed alone.
On a late afternoon walk against the wind, I see the forested section of Folkstone with bleak clarity: the trees beside the houses, the tall trunks, the unrelenting verticality of the winter woods.
In the summer you can lose yourself in green; in winter the gray limbs do not hide the split-levels and center-hall colonials. You are in a neighborhood, all right. You are not in a forested idyll. The trees are a slim buffer, a thin no-man’s land between property lines. In the winter it is harder to pretend.
One of our most coveted possessions is an electric tea kettle (not pictured; it’s too grungy to photograph) that automatically shuts off once the water has boiled. And one of my favorite sounds of the morning is the steady crescendo of boiling water the kettle produces. It’s barely perceptible at first, a quiet hiss, but 20 seconds later, it’s rumbling enough that I can hear it from the top of the stairs.
It’s a friendly, promising sound. It doesn’t demand immediate attention, as a whistling tea kettle does. The boiled water will stay hot for several minutes if you don’t reach it right away. Or if you’re a purist (as I am), you simply switch it on again to heat the water to the proper just-boiled temperature before warming the pot and making the tea.
I could pick our tea kettle’s sound out of a aural lineup any day. It says: you are not alone on this cold winter day. Soon you will curl your fingers around a mug of hot tea, sweetened with a splash of milk and way too much sugar. You will sip, you will wake up, you will take on the day.
You’d think we were preparing for Snowmageddon: The Sequel. The sidewalks are crunchy with “pretreatment,” plows are at the ready and cheerful meteorologists discuss the latest models with barely restrained glee.
I first heard about this storm last week when I bought a cup of tea from Betty in the cafeteria. “Keep your eye on Tuesday. There’s a storm brewing for Tuesday.” At that point no one else I knew had heard about this potential nor’easter. I’m not sure where Betty got her information, but she was spot on.
Since then I’ve heard much talk about winter weather advisories and storm warnings, states of emergency declared in southern states and dire predictions for the northeast. Once again, it looks like D.C. will miss the brunt of it. But until it does, we can look and listen and pretend.
Watching the new Masterpiece Theater production of “Downton Abbey” last night I marveled at the number of servants a family of five required: a butler, housekeeper, valet and ladies’ maid, a cook and assistant, several footmen, scullery maids and numerous others.
That this imaginary family of two parents and three daughters is the same configuration as my own sets my mind to spinning. What sort of servants would I like to have? A chauffeur would be nice, as would a cook and scullery maid. Perhaps we could find a servant who specializes in the throwing out of junk and the organizing of basements (an indentured closet organizer?). Seasonal assistance would be most welcome: a gardener in the spring, summer and fall; a personal shopper for the holidays.
The only problem with such a large staff is finding a place to house them in our snug house. But then, one doesn’t have to worry about such things with fantasy employees.
