Category: Everything Else

Begin doing what you want to do now.

We are not living in eternity.

We have only this moment,

sparkling like a star in our hand
and melting like a snowflake.

-Marie Beyon Ray

Go to answer a phone call and look what happens- it snows all over my laundry.

May I remind you that it was a humid 74 degrees on Saturday?

I’m sorry, isn’t there some sort of rule that it’s not allowed to snow until after Thanksgiving?

It went down into the twenties last night; we had to scramble to bring the worm farm in so the worms wouldn’t freeze (I hope they’re all right, poor things) and to unhook the hose so it wouldn’t freeze and crack like every other hose we’ve ever owned.

Our house is an ancient farmhouse (built somewhere around 1820) that had an addition- well, added- in the 1980s. The old part of the house is heated by oil, the new by electric.

We discovered last night that the programmable thermostat (which we bought last year) isn’t working, so we couldn’t turn on the heat in that part of the house. I swear on everything that is holy that I could see my breath this morning as I packed lunches. Fun! Very Little House on the Prairie.

Well, it seems that whether or not I’m ready for winter, winter is ready for me. Time to stock up on marshmallows and hot chocolate!

You expected to be sad in the fall.

Part of you died each year
when the leaves fell from the trees
and their branches were bare against the wind
and the cold, wintry light.

But you knew there would always be the spring,
as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.

-Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway gets it. It’s not autumn, or even winter; it’s the transition, the dying off, little by little.

Part of me is dying; that exuberant part that I discovered in spring when I became hypersensitive to the renewal of the earth around me.

As the days go by and there is less and less new life to chronicle, I lose a little bit of that sensitivity, that enthusiasm. It falls from me like petals, like fiery leaves in the wind.

But that’s OK, I guess. In part because that sort of energy is unsustainable long-term, not to mention exhausting to those who have to live with me.

The days grow shorter, I slow down and mellow. I cook. I snuggle. I catch up on long-neglected reading.

I look more carefully for little things to take joy in.

Mushrooms growing out of tree trunks.
Birds’ nests revealed in the absence of leaves.

The juncos return. The feeders become social hotspots.

I spy the first goldfinches. This one is a female; can you find her?

I look forward to the days that I can scatter seed on snow.
I relax. I rejuvenate. I catch my breath, and wait for spring.

All this hurrying soon will be over.

Only when we tarry do we touch the holy.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Even the bugs are slowing down in anticipation of winter.

I knew that some insects produce a natural “antifreeze” to survive the freezing temperatures (some can survive temperatures as extreme as -20 degrees Celsius!). What I didn’t know is that the chemical some insects produce- propylene glycol- is used as a “green” antifreeze for cars! Fascinating, right?

The fact that insects- such simple, multitudinous, seemingly insignificant things- have such a complex survival mechanism in place, gives me peace, in a way.

I have to believe that whatever hardships loom on the horizon, somehow everything will be taken care of. I refuse to constantly worry- worrying, after all, being a kind of prayer.

Someone, something, has ensured that the will and the means to survive resides within us all. Dig deep. We will make it through the long winter.

Who speaks of victory?

To endure is everything.

-Rilke