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Snow Thoughts

There were no eggs in the chicken house this morning, and I wasn’t surprised because it’s been so cold. Now, in late afternoon, the snow is falling thick and the window reflects back my Christmas lights. I’ll probably leave them up for awhile because why can’t things be cozy even after Christmas?

I love when snow sticks to forgotten summer screens.

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I love when cardinals and blue jays, chickadees and juncos feed on the porch, leave their prints in the snow.

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[Children are laughing outside in the snowy dusk. Imagine the coldness of the backs of their necks, the raw ring between the sleeve of their coats and their mittens, the wind-burned cheeks.]

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A Fall Walk

I went for a walk this afternoon because the sun was too beautiful for me to stay inside. I went down to one of the reservations on the way to the beach. It’s short – only about a mile – and it winds through fields, through the marsh, and then loops around Easter Island.

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My parents were out teaching people how to extract honey, my sister was at a friend’s house, one of my brothers was watching football, and my youngest brother was wishing we were apple picking. I snuck out of the house (“I’m just going for a walk,”), and I went alone, even though I knew my youngest brother would’ve come with me. But after a morning at the Farmer’s Market and an hour doing dishes, I knew I needed to be alone.

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I didn’t discover anything deep on my walk. I didn’t have any epiphanies. But I did discover a fort someone had left behind. A boy I dated in college told me about a kind of art people create and leave in the woods or a public place, just leave it there for people to stumble upon. That’s what this fort reminded me of – an earth-toned masterpiece.

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I liked the memory of people in the woods.

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