04 Friday Feb 2011
Posted in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors
For Max, who enjoys a winter serving of snow more than any I know, this lovely poem by Mary Oliver.
Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in the world.
Oh, I could not have said it better
myself.
01 Tuesday Feb 2011
Posted in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors
Tags
Local businesses began putting up their “Closed Tuesday” signs before opening up on Monday.
Schools closed in advance. City officials asked citizens to stay home Tuesday. And setting a good example, city buses are not running up and down Walker Avenue as they usually do.
It’s an eerie quiet, except for that persistent north wind that wipes across rooftops and whips through trees carrying snow in its wake. The snow rises and curls like smoke, making it easy to imagine roofs and trees as cigarette smokers taking a break. Puff, puff, puffing away.
My husband, of course, is working in his office, a small space inside our garage, that eighty years ago was the living space for a maid. Before we refurbished it, there was no insulation in the walls. The 10 by 12 foot space was heated only by a small bathroom heater. I can’t imagine it would have kept this hard-working woman warm on nights like last night, where temperatures dived below twenty. Even with insulation, his new electric radiator will likely not reach set point on a blustery day like today.
I imagine my husband is one of few in the city working away like it’s a normal day at the office. That’s just the way he is — one of the many reasons I love him. He just rides the waves of life without flailing about. While I worry over things like a loss of heat and power, he just smiles and tells me he’s not. And this makes me stop too.
For a while the snow stopped. But fine fairy flakes are falling again. Sometimes they float around in circles riding invisible whirlpools in the sky. Other times they come hard as rain, pushed to the ground by gales of frigid air.
It’s nine degrees outside. Here in the house, I’m grateful for a lovely seventy-two. Out in my husband’s office, it’s sixty-five. Maybe he’ll come in soon and work at home like other telecommuters across Oklahoma.
As for me, I don’t mind a break in everyday routines. With flakes growing bigger, I think I’m gonna set up shop in front of the warm side of the window. And as I do with every pretty snowfall, I’ll think about Mother — how she liked to build a big roaring fire in her fireplace and do nothing more than watch snow flakes fall from heaven.
The cobalt blue bottles lining my windows — Mother’s gift to me a very long time ago — are beckoning me to do just that.
31 Monday Jan 2011
Posted in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors
Today was a study in opposites. Either I ran into long lines of people. Or I was all alone in a veritable ghost town.
The quick trip to the grocery store: Long lines.
The large downtown bank: Nobody.
The post office: Long lines — reminiscent of Christmas rush.
Supper at my newest favorite downtown Mexican eatery, the Iguana Grill: Nada.
The kitchen-bed-bath department store where I sometimes buy my coffee: Mostly empty shelves. The cashier ringing up my purchase apologized for their being so little selection. But being the blizzard buzzard I’ve become today, I was glad to walk away with dregs.
All this mad dash of stockpiling groceries and tanking up on my gotta-have Mexican food and taking care of loose ends which really could have waited but for this sense that they really couldn’t — was due to what weather experts are already willing to call a record-breaking blizzard — hours before its scheduled arrival.
When it hits — any time now — it will begin with freezing rain and top us off with 12 hours of snow. By this time tomorrow, there will be 8-12 inches on the ground so we’re advised to stay put.
I hate the certainty of it all — the forgone conclusion that it’s a record-breaker before a single flake of snow has fallen from the sky — while at the same time, grateful for the warning that’s helped me be as prepared as possible.
Only a little watching of television weather news makes me wish to tune into my windows, where the real story waits to unfold without hype. And without long lines. And without question that my little slice of the world will soon become a veritable ghost town.
an everyday life 