It is full-on winter now — temperature in the teens when I woke up. How right it feels, when the furnace hums and the clocks tick and the birds chirp, how right it feels for it to be cold outside. The snow falls and stays. The bare trees stand sentinel.
December was lovely but strange, warmer than some Octobers. Lawn care chores piled up around me. Bulb-planting blistered my palms.
Now, being inside is not only expected, it is necessary. There is a kind of relief in that.
A tree, a couch, an open week. These are days when dreaming is possible, when sitting still and doing nothing is not only permissible but almost encouraged.
School is out, holiday to-dos are to-done. The calendar is open, the tasks complete. Even nature seems to be holding its breath. Autumn behind us, winter yet to truly begin.
Yesterday I watched two old movies and an episode of “The Ascent of Man.” Today I may put away some gifts and do a bit of tidying.
But then again … I may not.
We
have one Christmas, one Easter, one Independence Day. But we have two solstices: one for the shortest day and one for the longest.As I sit here this morning, watching the world slowly lighten, I think about the imminent wisdom of these dual celebrations. You could see one as our pinnacle and one as our nadir. But there is a hopeful message in each, too.
In summer we revel in the long twilight, the early morning, the profusion. In winter we tell ourselves, it’s all up from here.
We live in the present for one, in the future with the other. Surely we could do with a little of each.
It’s not quite 11 a.m. and almost 60 degrees this December 17. The forsythia is confused.
Yes, it lost its final leaves just two weeks ago, but the soft air and warm earth are belying the scant light, are sending messages of “why not” to the poor plant.
And what of us humans? Does it make sense to pack away the shorts and t-shirts, or should we just tuck them amongst the woolens? Are we navigating a new season here?
Not quite winter. Let’s call it winterish.
We come now to one of my favorite times in the liturgical year. It’s a short season, one ever more likely to be buried in tinsel and outdoor lighting. It’s the season of Advent, of preparation, of prayers and devotionals.
It is almost lost in this world, buried by frantic list-making and shopping.By nonstop carol radio and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel. Every year I hope the prayer and devotional part wins out. Every year it does not. But Advent is early this year, so maybe it has a chance.
Advent reminds me of medieval stone abbeys, of kneeling on hard surfaces, of chanting the divine office in the wee hours. No doubt informed by once reading The Cloister Walk, a fine book by Kathleen Norris, during early December, but also, I think, by the hymns and carols of my youth.
Now these are mostly memory, but still captured in a few plaintive melodies — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, for one. I played it on the piano last night, trying to capture the hope and longing of this fleeting season.
The Kwanzan cherry tree puts on quite a show in the spring. It’s not the earliest bloomer; it waits until the soil has warmed and the forsythia and dogwood have paved the way. But when it finally gets going, it draws the eye to its big-fisted blossoms, its pink petals exploding from narrow stems.
What I’ve only started to appreciate is the show it puts on in autumn. Once again, it bides its time. Other leaves have changed, dried and blown away. But the leaves of the Kwanzan cherry have waited patiently — and this is their time.
They light up the late fall landscape, shimmering in dawns and dusks. They flutter in the breeze, brave flags waving. They gladden my heart each time I see them.
The Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Rails to Trails path was bustling late yesterday when I finally made my way to it. There were runners and walkers and cyclists, mostly the latter zooming by with a brisk warning of “passing on the left.”
I slipped into what I always think of as the “bridle path” part of the trail, the unpaved route that runs alongside the asphalt. But due to the bridges over Herndon and Fairfax County Parkways, I couldn’t always stay on that calmer and less traveled path.
What I could do was to focus on the scenery I passed: the changing colors of the deciduous trees.
The subtle beauty of the shaggy undergrowth … and the sun setting way too early, once again.
I took a stroll late yesterday through the gloaming, the exquisite though way-too-early gloaming — I was walking between 4 and 5! — then came home and wrote these words:
The late fall light is draining quickly from the sky and a bright near-half moon showing itself. There are the most delicate of evening sounds: a few hardy crickets, the bird that says “Judy” (did I determine that’s a wren?) and various human-caused sounds — a pinging that could have come from a small forge but was likely a kid banging on a pipe — the distant downshift of a passing truck. But none of these sounds disturbed the peacefulness of the landscape. They only enhanced it.
Some of the shorter shrubs have lost most of their leaves. Those that remain seem to be offering themselves for viewing, like golden coins on a platter. Back on my street, the russets and scarlets of the maples and oaks shimmered in the twilight.
Night falls fast this time of year, but when it’s warm, as it has been today, that doesn’t seem to matter as much.
As temperatures plunged into the 20s, we brought in the ferns and the spider plant and the cactus. They are hunkered down here where temps are in the upper 60s, heading for a high of 70 once the furnace moves to its daytime setting. Because some of the plants are so large they must be moved in on little dollies, they will stay inside now till spring.
But I will add a wistful note, a plea to the weather gods. It’s nothing personal, nothing against the plants themselves. But I hope it won’t be long before they can be outside again.
Three layers on today, plus wool socks and, at least for the moment, a hoodie over my head. It’s been months since I put on this many sweaters. Must be November!
Life without seasons holds no appeal, would be flat and boring. But as daylight shrinks and cold winds blow, I feel a shiver that comes not just from the cold upstairs room where I write these days. It comes, too, from the knowledge of what awaits us.
Even though I try to live in the moment, to take each challenge as it comes, it’s hard not to anticipate this perpetual, seasonal one, the dying of the light.