I went to that paradise of capitalism Merrimon Avenue today. I took some books to Accent on Books (yes, “Staubs and Ditchwater” is back in stock) and went to the post office to mail some away. As I left the parking lot of the p.o., I noticed something flitting past the windshield.
Snow. It was tiny crumbs of snow and they gamboled this way and that as I waited at the traffic light.
Now, it is not unusual to have a taste of cold and snow this early in the season here in the southern Highlands. But after several gentle winter seasons, I can barely help seeing this as a sign of things to come. There was also a dead crow in the middle of the busy roadway. Poor thing. And unusual–how often do I see a dead crow anywhere, much less in the center of Merrimon Ave.?
Now, the wind is up and the furnace is on (I give thanks for a full fuel tank and a functioning furnace). But my thoughts are turning inward, picking through the words there that are ready to be jiggled around and made into something. It does seem like alchemy to me sometimes–there are those words in there and then I get an itch to write and suddenly all those words are arranging themselves onto a screen or a page of my cheap notebook.
The wind is bringing change, as it always does. The crumbly bits of leftover thoughts get swept out of our brains–if we’ll allow it–and there is room then for new considerations, deeper textures of both ideas and feelings. The sun set early, I think, chilly in the clouds and the cold wind. The night has come, pushing evening away, desperate for time with us, to sit outside the door and hope for a glimpse of the life inside.
She will be happiest when the lights are turned out here, too, and we are tucked into our warm beds, blessed by a late-night cup of ginger tea, a water bottle for our feet and a cat who will choose–as he always does–to sleep in the geographic center of the bed.
The cool of the evening gives way to the settled homesteading of night.
night at Camp Rockmont