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.
“Our literature is filled with young people like myself who came from the provinces to the Big Cave [New York City], seeking involvement in what one always thought from the outside was a world of incomparable wonder, hoping for some vague kind of literary ‘fulfillment,'” writes Willie Morris in his memoir North Toward Home.
I’ve meant to read this book for years, and now that I’ve almost finished it, I’m itching to read his sequel, New York Days. Morris grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and his description of driving home from Texas through Natchez, Port Gibson and Vicksburg is some of the loveliest writing I’ve ever read about returning to one’s hometown:
“I had the most overwhelming sense of coming home, to some place that belonged to me; I was not merely stunned by its beauty, for this was not new to me; I was surprised to feel so settled inside, as if nothing, no matter how cruel or despairing, could destroy my belonging. It was the last time I felt so strongly about a place.”
Morris became the editor of Harper’s magazine, its youngest ever, and set about chronicling a tumultuous time (the 1960s) in its pages. He edited and befriended many writers, wrote numerous books, was writer-in-residence at Ole Miss and died of a heart attack at age 64 in 1999.
As someone who also came to New York City in my youth, I find the words Morris wrote about the big city absolutely on the mark: “Coming to New York for the first time, the sensitive outlander might soon find himself in a subtle interior struggle with himself, over the most fundamental sense and meaning of his own origins. It was this struggle, if fully comprehended, which finally could give New York its own peculiar and wonderful value as a place, for it tested who you are, in the deepest and most contorted way.”
Yesterday was the Feast of the Epiphany, a day I’ve always liked, though not so much for its liturgical meaning as for its philosophical one: “a sudden, intuitive perception; an insight into the reality or essential meaning of something.”
When I was younger I considered epiphanies the “ah hah” moments in life, grandiose and breath-taking. But as I’ve grown older I’ve realized they are more common than I once thought. They are part of the wisdom that comes with age. They are moments when I say to myself, “Oh, so that’s what it’s all about.” They are not always pleasant, but they are always true.
Yesterday afternoon after work I walked to the containment pond. It was cold and calm, and once I reached the pond, I pulled the earphones out of my ears. I wanted to walk without distraction.
The pond was so full of life in the spring and summer, buzzing with insects. Now it is clogged with cattails that have dried and turned brittle. There was a seasonal lesson here I could better contemplate in silence.
I’ve always thought it would be boring to exercise on a track, to walk in circles, but yesterday I saw the point of it — because each round brings a new revelation. There is a peacefulness that comes from such repetitive movement, a cleansing.
I only made one loop yesterday. But I’ll go back to the pond soon to search for its quiet center.
With two kids in college and one in high school, hanging out together is a matter of timing and luck. Someone goes out later than she had planned; another stays in. Tom and I go to bed later than we would otherwise. Eventually, we all end up in the kitchen.
We don’t do anything special: We laugh, complain, roll our eyes, hug, nag, eat a bowl of cereal and go our separate ways.
But these moments are what I remember when we’re apart.
There is, first of all, the hour. In the holiday house, 5 a.m. is firmly in the “night” category. Now it is unequivocally morning.
Next are the clothes. I can’t pull on a pair of black stretch pants and an old sweatshirt. There are skirts and boots to consider, makeup to wear.
And now, in a few minutes, comes the commute. It, above all, separates days off from days “on.” I often think how different my life would be if I jumped in a car and drove 15 minutes to an office, parked and went in. Instead, I drive, park, walk, ride Metro, switch to another Metro line, ride two stops and then walk some more. Total time: one hour 10 minutes on the way in and one hour 30 on the way home.
The commute has a life of its own. It is a force to be reckoned with. Especially on re-entry day.
