Longing

For the last few days I have been longing for snow. Usually I am excited for autumn and I am happy that it is here but something in me wants winter with it's long dark nights and white days. Mainly though I have been dreaming of the smell of snow how it smells like water but without the humid after tones. After a year filled with bright colors and shades of pink and orange I want the restfulness of whites and grays.... Or maybe it is the silence I crave, the year has been filled with noise and I am ready again to retreat into my head and empty out a little, spend more time making than planning. In winter I am less inclined to run all over the place and I need this pause.

There is a photo my father took years ago of cattails in the snow. The reeds are black against a white of late afternoon winter sun, that is what I want my world to look like. I want it to taste the way it tastes when I suck the water out of a fist full of snow and I want it to smell like fires and water and cold all at once.

Rather than being frustrated by my longing it invigorates me. It is the action verb winter not the noun.

Winter Sun

Winter Sun
Originally uploaded by Ink Spots
Does anyone know how to blog multiple pictures from Flickr to one entry?

Before, During, After the Storm

BEFORE
Kevin decorating the Solstice Tree with Alder's toys and a garland I made from scrap fabric (in theory this is only temporary decoration).
DURING
In the early morning we lost power the wind was 30mph with gusts of 60. There was a lull in the storm, long enough for us to go out for coffee, actually the coffee shop closed when we left.

The storm wasn't so much snow as the wind but it was still dead out, this was the most action the counter saw all day.

AFTER
The wind picked up last night and was really battering our house. In the morning we found pieces of siding and fascia in the yard.

A Winter's Morn

Ahh cold weather and real winter darkness, I've missed it so much. I'm not being sarcastic I really love the weather right now, it's snowing outside the window and it looks cold cold cold. In Colorado snow was always followed by insanely bright sun and no real feeling of winter (there were a few winters where I didn't wear gloves except when I was playing in the snow). Also the light here really does change over the year a lot more, Colorado is much further south than one would think. I'm happy with the nestling down under the covers and drinking hot coco feeling I'm having today.

Part of the day will be spent at the shop, not that many people are going out today. So it'll be me and Alder playing and making things. And a trip to the post office to mail out somethings.

Snow and Poetry

Our delicious spring was interrupted with the usual but always unexpected April snow. Alder and I have been cuddling and playing on the couch all day. He's sleeping now.

From: 1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary
by Mary Oliver


Sometimes,
walking for hours through the wood,
I don't know what I'm looking for,
maybe for something
shy and beautiful to come
frisking out of the undergrowth.

Once a fawn did just that.
My dog didn't know
what dogs usually do.
And the fawn didn't know.

For as a doe, she was probably
down in Round Pond, swizzling up
the sweet marsh grass and dreaming
that everything was fine.

<><><><><>

The way I'd like to go on living in this world
wouldn't hurt anything, I'd just go on
walking uphill and downhill, looking around,
and so what if half the time I don't know
what for-

so what if it doesn't come
to a hill of beans-

so what if I voted liberal,

and am Jewish,
or Lutheran-

or a game warden-

or a bingo addict-

and smoke a pipe?

<><><><>

In the films of Dachau and Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
the dead rise from the earth
and are piled in front of us, the starved
stare across forty years,
and lush, green musical Germany
shows again its iron claw, which won't

ever be forgotten, which won't
ever be understood, but which did,
slowly, for years, scrape across Europe

<><><><>

while the rest of the world
did nothing.

This poem stirred my soul yesterday.

The Snowy Day

Yes the title is the same as the Ezra Keats book but it was appropriate. The radio kept threatening 18 inches of snow and we were going stir crazy so we headed down to Mondo Vino to pick up some beer. It was good to get out and move for all of us. Back in the house were all cozy now and Alder is enjoying his new napping bed (when he doesn't fall asleep in random places; like say under the dinning room table). Below are some photos of our day.

Stacey

Snowy Day and the New Bed

Snow

Bath time with Papa

Last week it snowed 30" at our house now it's snowing again. The city hadn't even gotten to plowing the side street yet and here we go with more snow on top of melt. Time to spend time cuddling and being creative. We haven't left the house all day.

The weather has put us in the cooking sort of mood. Kevin made amazing pasta from scratch, he's finally figured out the secret. It was like something out of a restaurant, not the worm like stuff his other attempts have been. He is now the pasta maker extraordinaire. I baked french bread today, two baguettes and two round loaves, we've already eaten two of them. For lunch I made corn bread. If the snow keeps coming down I'll bake more tomorrow.