Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak mid-winter


Frosty wind made moan,


Earth stood hard as iron,


Water like a stone;


Snow had fallen, snow on snow,


Snow on snow…

     I woke early this morning with the frosty wind moaning around the corners of our house. Outside, it was -10º F with wind chills making it -30º F. Inside, the furnace had come on and was slowly heating the house. It was too early for the harsh realities of electric lightbulbs so I lighted candles instead and sat down to a cup of tea and leftover berry muffins—it is never too early for tea and muffins.

     Outdoors it is truly bleak, even dangerous if one does not heed the advice of veterans or have the means to do so. I worry about them, the ones without the means; we haven’t had cold like this for twenty years. I think about my sister who lives further north with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than ours. I wonder about the birds that haven’t flown south in recent, milder years.

     Inside my house it is cozy, and we are hunkering down for the day. I will be making cinnamon rolls later for tea; I make them for holidays and bleak weather. Two years ago I made them during a blizzard and had just finished baking them when the power went out. We ate the rolls by candlelight and then went to bed early to read and stay warm under down comforters.

     I look outside my kitchen window. There are no deer or rabbit tracks this morning. A lone brown leaf slides across the surface of the unbroken snow, pushed by the wind. A marigold sun the color of summer slides into the bleak midwinter sky to make mockery of the stone-colored water and iron earth. But there isn’t anything bleak about the glory of sun halos, diamond dust or the feathers of frost on my windows. Is there a poem some gifted writer framed in words to capture these wonders? My words are too paltry.

     I wrote a post last spring about the cold—something voluble about it being relative. Three hours later with the furnace still chugging along without a break, and the house still chilly, it doesn’t feel relative.

art by Norman Rockwell, poem excerpt from Christina Rossetti

Auld Lang Syne

     I sat on the edge of her tapestry sofa listening to the clocks—there were no less than twelve of them in the front room alone, most of them antique. Small pocket watches sheltered under glass domes on the bookshelves, with individual heartbeats that could not be felt; but their collective ticking whirred softly through the silence like insects in summer. The grandfather clock, standing next to the sofa like an attentive butler, cleared his throat and growled a familiar tune every fifteen minutes—indecorous for a butler, perhaps, but perfectly natural for a clock. I was tempted to hum along. The massive oak regulator hanging on the wall between the sitting and dining rooms dominated the space with its size but possessed a singularly mellifluous voice. And every hour on the hour a chorus of chimes burst forth from all over the house.

     She had married an horologist from Persia. He was older than her by well over a decade, but was so lean and active he always seemed younger than all of us. They’d had no children together so, apart from the clocks and her infectious laugh, the house was quiet. He kept a modest shop on Main Street where he sold and repaired clocks and watches. They lived behind the shop in a cozy, two bedroom flat—wood floors, small doorways, pitched roof with alcoves upstairs and a basement she would never let me see. In summer when the windows were left open, you could here the church bells echo the hours across the river valley as though they were trying to set a good example for the indoor timekeepers; in autumn the maple on the parking turned the light to gold in the sitting and guest rooms.

     It was winter now, and I sat on her tapestry sofa listening to the clocks and watching her make tea for us in the kitchen. She made it the Persian way and served it in little glass cups with pink-flowered demitasse saucers. She always made scones and jam when she served tea, sometimes with currents, sometimes with whipped cream. This time she had made shortbread as well. She sat down opposite me with the tea things laid out on a low table between us, a small woman with red hair, fair skin, sweet voice and a laugh as big as her soul. Outside the large picture window behind her sofa, it began to snow and she spoke poetry to me:

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

     She refilled my teacup and brought out a book to read to me. She always chose her passages well, but even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. The way her hands held a book, the sound of her voice as she read, the very act of sharing words that had vibrated within her own frame are what mattered to me. It was a rare and exquisite pleasure she offered as she read aloud, and she could not have bestowed her gift on a more appreciative listener.  

     A few years ago, the horologist retired. He sold his shop, packed up his wife and his lightbulbs and moved to a climate without snow. The shop is a day spa now, and no one quotes poetry or reads to me anymore, but those hours of fellowship over tea and scones and stories still tick inside me with the constancy of an old and cherished clock.

poetry excerpt by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What Child is This

Joy to the World!

Simeon's Moment by Ron Dicianni

Darkling Thrush

     I took my Christmas packages to the post office earlier this week. The line was long, of course, and moving forward slowly. I decided to pass the time imagining ways to make the wait more festive.

     Some Christmas music would be nice; played softly so that I would still be able to hear what the woman behind the counter was mumbling to me about “liquidfragileorperishable” and Priority Mail that couldn’t be guaranteed to arrive on the West Coast within the next eight days even though it had just cost me almost as much as the gift in the box to send it. I guess I am a little behind this year. I also think each of the postal workers should have a dish of peppermints at their station to hand out to customers who remain congenial throughout the waiting process. And the worker who decked herself in jingle bells and blinking lights should get a bonus in her paycheck. How about a tree in the lobby to welcome us? Or maybe a big blow-up Santa with a sleigh to drop our boxes into after we are done paying for them just to remind us who the real delivery men are?

     But what I was really wishing for was a flash mob. Well, maybe not a mob exactly, but a few talented a cappella vocalists who would surprise and delight us with Joy to the World and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The customers inching around the edges of the post office in single file weren’t sullen, but we were all a little too somber for such a joyous season, a little too flat, verging on gray rather than a living green, or a red so resonant it could ring bells, or the glittering gold of jubilation.

     When I finished with my postal business I put on my coat and muffler and began to leave, but turned impulsively at the door, smiled and exclaimed, “Merry Christmas everybody!” A handful of the people still waiting in line responded in kind.

     I don’t know about anyone else, but I left the post office in higher spirits than when I arrived. My To Do list seemed shorter; my seasonal stress was shredded to ribbons; I turned up the volume on the Christmas carols playing in my car and sang to myself as I traveled from store to store; the snow falling softly from the sky felt like benign approbation. My gray had gone away.

     It reminds me of a poem I like that Thomas Hardy wrote for the Christmas of 1900:

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted night

Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

     This aged thrush in blast-beruffled blue jeans has chosen thus to fling her soul upon the growing gloom, and the full-hearted song that trembles through me is rooted in the birth of Christ the Savior that is celebrated in hope throughout the world at the end of each year. This year no less than others.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Darkling Thrush by MilesToGowithAli
The Darkling Thrush by Carrie Wild

High Jinks and Jollification

     We were in the car on our way to buy mint M&M’s and a space heater at Target when my husband said, “I’ll give you twenty dollars if you ask the electronics salesman where the doorbuster sales are.” It was already two weeks past Black Friday and Doorbusters were extinct for this year’s holiday season.

     Something came over me, I could feel it on my face: that wide-eyed, artless look of innocence that I inherited from my mother—my game face. 

     “Okay, I’ll do it.”

     “You can’t mention the twenty dollars,” he warned.

     When we entered the store I headed for the electronics department. Other than a girl behind the counter on the phone there were no sales personnel in view, so I waited patiently, trying to ignore my laughing husband hiding in the toy aisle. After a couple of minutes the polite and helpful girl on the phone said she would call someone to assist me. And she did…before I could back out of the prank and tell her not to bother.

     When I asked the polite and helpful young salesman who approached about the doorbusters, he just looked at me. I could tell that he was sizing me up, trying to determine if I was aged or just crazy. I looked him straight in the eyes, lifted my eyebrows a fraction and waited for his response.

     “Soooo…when you say doorbusters—“ he said slowly, diplomatically. By now my husband was rolling in the aisle, which was distracting and caused me to break character.

     “I’m sorry,” I said, no longer able to avoid grinning, “someone dared me to ask you that. I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.” Since I am old enough to be his mother, maybe he forgave me.

     I got my twenty dollars though, that and my husband was still chuckling about it hours later.

     'Tis the season to be jolly. 

In Which I Boast a Little About My Craftiness

craft·y

ˈkraftē

adjective

1. 1.

   clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods.

   "a crafty crook faked an injury to escape from prison"
2. 2.

   informal

   of, involving, or relating to the making of decorative objects and other things by hand.

   "the blogger displayed a few, very clever, crafty Christmas decorations "

   
   

        I do not consider myself crafty by any definition, I possess little to no talent for arts and crafts, but every year at Christmastime a dormant gene of creativity awakes and I make something. Just one thing. All by myself. No inspiration from Pinterest. No Martha Stewart standing over my shoulder to cheer me on.

   
   

        Dear gracious and supportive readers, is this annual seasonal effort not deserving of a little blog post boast?

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

        A few years ago I bought two artificial berry garlands and twined them together into a wreath to hang in my dining room. Perhaps, if I hadn't just mentioned it, you might have supposed that instead of making this simple wreath I possessed the ability to carve the oak leaf and acorn motif on the architectural artifact hanging on the wall beneath it. Not so.

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

        Neither did I throw this bowl on my pottery wheel or carve the ethnic Santa from a discarded bocce ball, but I did make the paper snowballs and the tablecloth.

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   The green velvet cushions were made by Crate and Barrel. I made the mushroom-colored canvas ones last year out of stenciled placemats. I could have bought nearly the same thing already made up into cushions, but I didn't want to pay the asking price. If necessity is the mother of invention, then its stepmother must be thrift.

   
   

        This year's objet d'art was a little more challenging. It even required a trip to the craft store and a hot glue gun. The Christmas tree is made of book paper chandelier shades, a heavy wrapping paper tube, a craft cone and a wooden coaster.
   
   

   

   
   

   
        It is satisfying to envision something and then produce it with one's own hands even if the inspiration comes along only once each year. The crafting urge has already moved on, but I want to thank you all for allowing me to strut my stuff for a little while. You are too kind.
   
   

Home Again

     It was supposed to be a ten day trip to Russia. Instead of flying east through Moscow this time, he decided to take the more direct route west through China. We packed Christmas cookies in a tin for the bottom of his backpack and the grandchildren made paper ornaments to hang in his hotel room. Someone tucked a box of holiday candy into his suitcase between his pants. But then, after more than two days of travel, he was stranded in a backwater airport in Mongolia with a canceled flight, an expired temporary visa, no flights into Siberia for another two days, and no one around who spoke English or knew how to process his credit card. If not for the Russian girl who spoke both English and Chinese and took notice of his dilemma, who knows what may have happened.

     In the end he aborted the trip and came home. That is such a good word. After four days of global airport hopping he is home. Safe.

     There are some people in this world who demand to be bribed to do the job they are paid to do, and others who bend over backwards to help. My husband encountered both. I wish I could thank the Russian girl who interpreted for him at the airport, and the Chinese woman who accompanied him to the bank so that he could exchange his money to buy a ticket back to Beijing, and refused any payment for going beyond her job description.

painting by Lisbeth Zwerger