Frosty Morning

My day is better when I start it with poetry, unlike this morning, when my first encounter was dog poop. It was full of bird seed, an identifier, since Coleman the black lab is our grazer, trolling for fiber I suppose. John calls them Shake and Bake Turdettes, and they are slightly more attractive than the Regular Turdettes, even to my sleepy eyes, although one worries when one is comparing the beauty of various dog excrements.
This was not the topic I had in mind on this frost-encrusted morning. There has been excitement for days over the prediction of “wintry mix,” that magical phrase which means all manner of imminent slush and slickness. The temperature teases, wafting back and forth diabolically, just above, now just below the magical number, 32 degrees. School is canceled, of course, business openings delayed. And yet, this one is already a bit of a bust. It is 8:30 a.m. and even here, in the country, where it is cooler than in the asphalt-riddled town, the window thermometer reads mid-thirties.
I was just in New Hampshire. Looking out the window during a morning meditation, it took a moment to realize that I was looking at horizontal snow. Oh, I thought, now we won’t go on our planned drive to Vermont. We’ll snuggle up with cocoa in front of the fire, it will all be cancelled. Then. . .wait a minute. We’re in New Hampshire. There are more months that are winter than are not winter. The state motto is (proudly) Live Free or Die. They ain’t no fancy schmancy cancelling!!! Not for us! Grab those gloves! Put on those ear muffs! Lace up those boots! No sittin in front of no girly fire for us! And that’s what happened. The two of us from the South tried to scootch further into the comfy couch, looking dreamily out the window, hands around a mug. . .twas not to be.
So it is this morning, in North Carolina, as the temperature edges upward that I scootch in. The skies are still gray, the day is still early. Brioche dough rises on the counter. I have fed the fire in the woodstove. Green coffee beans wait beside the roaster. I have ten pounds to do today, one at a time, as my custom roaster dictates, some to be carried, some to be shipped, all for Christmas gifts. Cinnamon and butter and coffee and cherry wood in the fire. . .today’s aromatic antidotes for my odiferous dawn. . .

Predawn Anatomy

The horizon is now skeletal, this early winter, this December morning. These early visions disappear in moments, never to return in exactly the same form. Five minutes after I shivered on the back deck, metal camera raised to my face, the color was washed away, the sun closer to the day, our North Carolina day. As far as I know, the sun is not aware of this planet that rolls so deliciously in its bath of light and warmth. Deliciously as if it were all play, a planet only now waking to gratitude and care for this gift given so freely - without ceasing - for billions of years.
Now, a bit later, the sun is up. The grass sparkles with frost diamonds; the comfrey slumps, its large furry leaves frozen in a pile, like sleeping, satisfied lovers. I have broken the ice on the bird baths; the squirrels have made their way - again - to the feeders despite all the impediments. I shall open the cold frames a bit later, to give the greens a more direct drink of light and to allow them to breathe. Oddly, closed in their glass box, a winter sun through below-freezing air can roast them as surely as could July. July is not their friend. July would be lethal. So Mama needs to pay attention. . .a calling to be sure. . .

Winter Salad. . .

My favorite gardening season is right now, when nights threaten to freeze everything in sight, and there are cozy boxes of salad, their protective lids in place. There are three different kales in this one. Peeking out in the box behind are lettuces, which are more fragile and usually give up the fight by mid January. I put the lids back on just after taking this picture, as it is supposed to be in the twenties tonight, the death knell for tender greens.
In the open beds just out of view are their hardier cousins: spinach, two different kinds of arugula, mache and beet greens. The glaring blank spaces are where the seeds and I didn't cooperate very well. Oh, and various weeds of course, or at least "of course" in my garden. I have learned to think of them as character flaws, simply enriching, making life more interesting.
It is a pristine day, this first day of December. Gusting rain yesterday, accompanied by the thrilling threats of tornadoes, cleared the air for today's sunshine, brilliant. What a devoted friend, this sun, who continues to show up, day after day. And this water, which wants to nourish all of creation. What friends we have.
The salad showed up on our dinner plates last night, along with roasted cauliflower and onions, a new favorite on John's low-carb diet, and grilled lamb chops. . .a swoon of a meal. A mini-version of leftovers turned out to be lunch today. . .blessings, blessings, blessings. . .

The first fire of the season. . .

It sounds so grand to say that we spent last evening reading in the library, in front of this winter's first fire. There was no butler to bring us cigars. We didn't play chess. The library is small, the original 1700's log cabin that sits in the middle of this sprawling, eclectic house. The shelves are full. We have read, and/or used all the books, many more than once. And even though we give them away, and take them in cartons to used book stores, they continue to come in the door. The one-click purchase option at Amazon is a wicked amenity. Books migrate to other rooms, held in the hand of the absorbed commuter. We put shelves in the bathrooms, sidetables next to couches; shelves and sidetables in the bedrooms. There are few places to sit in this house where there is not something to read within arm's length. And still books collect, perhaps like refugees from foreign lands, drawn to communities of their own.
I grew up in a reading family, married a reading man. Like many reading adults, I vividly remember the children's library to which I was finally given access. I remember its smell, the paper leaves I could put on my tree for the summer reading program as I worked my way through Nancy Drew, or even more consequentially, the shelf of little blue biographies. How many were there? I'm guessing twenty or so, all men, except for Florence Nightengale and Clara Barton, appropriately heroic nurses. No Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Eleanor Roosevelt, much less rabble rousers like Margaret Fuller.
I didn't notice. One didn't in the fifties, raised by a woman who quit her college degree and then her nursing career to be married to a man who went out in the world, supporting her and her increasing pile of babies. I devoured the hero's stories, one after another, absorbing the lesson from Abraham Lincoln and Davy Crockett: from the moment of your birth, you were destined for greatness, which is why you had to grow up either in abject poverty, mostly alone, or born to privilege, as were the Roosevelts, but with a burning, pure desire for a huge life. I had a burning, pure desire for a huge life, or at least one a little bigger than Crescent Elementary. So I studied hard, which came easy. I excelled academically, because it made everyone around me happy, and it helped to satiate a kind of gnawing hunger.
I read and retained, at least for awhile, and I was transported. There was this enormous world out there, contained in all of these volumes, with their enigmatic titles. How could they manage to stay closed, shelved as they were, when they were bursting inside with magical tales, words, one after the other, each one evoking a different world. I read through all the Oz books, still remember their differing colors.
It isn't that I want to escape this world; I don't. But I continue to be awed by the power of words, limited as they are, to bring us these windows into this reality with which we have been gifted.
The shutting down of the gardens, bringing wood from the barn to the front porch, turning on lamps earlier in the day, longer sleeves, long-simmering soups. . .all lead to the library after dinner, in front of the fire.
I am so grateful. . .

Turkey and stuffing and pie, oh my. . .

I'm sitting amidst dishes to be done, bills to be paid, soup to be put together, as my house guests board planes in far cities. Thanksgiving she is a comin'. My turkey is in Winston-Salem, cold and mute. I will go get her/him tomorrow afternoon, along with the probably typical shopping list of ingredients: local sausage for the stuffing, heavy cream, pearl onions. Instead of the usual family coming here, it will be adopted orphans, friends whose families live too far for a heavily traveled weekend jaunt. These friends are foodies, like we are, so the football promises to be seriously influenced by the baking, the sauteeing, the roasting. Lovely.
In North Carolina, November weather usually means we can walk in the woods as well as sit by the fire. Thanksgiving morning, we will take freshly roasted coffee and a warm cinnamon brioche down to the creek, weather permitting, a change of scene for our urban Californians.
I am also hoping that son Eamon will show me how to use the digital camera, and how to load pictures here, so I can document these blessings that fill me so.
And. . .for the first time, we will video chat on Wednesday with friend and fellow foodie Doris, as we prepare for the holiday in our separate kitchens. Then on Thursday, by the same means, share Thanksgiving with sister Laura. Incredible. . .Maybe we can do the same with brother Jim, we'll see if he's equipped.
Friday, we load up re-constructed leftovers and head out early for Tennessee, there to meet brother John at Mom's and have Thanksgiving, The Return. Pray for the thighs. We do have two workouts scheduled at the gym: one for the girls on Tuesday with Bridget the Terrible; then Wednesday night the guys with John's trainer, Jeff the Fierce. So we're making a token stab at it, but in the face of pumpkin cheesecake, sausage stuffing with gravy, homemade rolls with Irish butter, toasted pecan pie. . .well, you see which way this is "weighted," heavily toward elastic waistbands and stretchy pants. I'm sitting in my smaller jeans right this minute, perhaps as a farewell gesture.
I really do need to get the dishes done and the soup made. They really are going to be here soon. . .More later!

An aromatic feast. . .

The coffee roaster is cranking. I've lost count of how many pounds I've roasted this afternoon. Costa Rican San Marcos Tarrazu is the current darling. There are two pounds in the mail to a retreat center outside Greensboro, along with blueberry lemon and chocolate chip scones. Four loaves of a Rose Berenbaum's sandwich bread cool on the racks, one stuffed with pecans and cinnamon. They are all spoken for, headed in three different directions. Two pounds of coffee will go next door, to head out of town on Friday for a Thanksgiving week vacation at the coast. Around five, when I get up in the morning, I'll take the three loaves of oatmeal bread out of the refrigerator. They will rise and then get baked before I leave for the gym. Two pounds will travel with me tomorrow to my workout, a delivery which barters for extra exercise time. After my workout and before leaving for a women's dinner in Chapel Hill tomorrow night, a two and a half hour drive, I'll bake the chocolate chip scones for another order. The dry ingredients are measured and on the counter.
I will admit to feeling a little breathless. I don't mind a day like this one here and there, but I don't do well with too many in a row. I lose my perspective, somehow. I remember when all my days were like this, when I was working, and going to school and teaching and commuting and in the small crevices between, attempting to be wife, mother and friend. I remember feeling as though I was patching it together on all fronts, barely maintaining a facade, falling apart on the inside. Drinking wine to calm down, sometimes while studying, after getting home at 10 or 11. Getting up to multiple cups of tea and coffee, then diet sodas in the afternoons. All of that just in an attempt to keep all those balls in the air, each of which had some self-definition written on it, barely visible as I kept tossing one after the other up up and away.
These days I don't have all those external deadlines. I make the pressures myself. But the addiction, the high is the same. "Look how busy I am. Look how productive I am." And the obvious corollary: See how little present I am to life itself, how unaware of the beauty of this fleeting moment, which I will never ever be able to get back. . .
Husband John knows of these predilections. He has already called to make sure that I am still going to be able to go out to dinner with him tonight. He knows how many times I have plead fatigue or overwhelm. . .not this time. . .not this time. . .I'm learning, slowly. . .just two more pounds of coffee, another 40 minutes. . .just two more. . .

The leaves are all manner of colors, on their way down. It is mid-November, mid-day, cloudy and chilly. Rain is predicted for this afternoon and tomorrow. I am home, a brief respite in the midst of a whirlwind of travel since late August: a North Carolina retreat, then San Francisco, then Montana, Connecticut and Massachusetts, home to pack for Paris and just past, a weekend at the beach. I'll head back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina this week before Thanksgiving next week and a trip to Tennessee, then to New Hampshire before Christmas, back to Tennessee during Christmas, and Lake Tahoe for an extended writing retreat just after. Next year, Alaska and Ireland are tentatively planned.
I list all this in a bit of wonderment, as I'm not a traveler, really, am content at home, writing, gardening, baking, roasting coffee, reading, writing some more. I used to be but am no longer what I would consider a public person. I used to think that my work was "out there", contributing in large rather administrative sorts of ways, and I guess it was. I have a left a trail of modest accomplishment, and now. . .well, now, I am in what some would call "liminal space." It is a place of diffuse and patient waiting, both emergence and integration. It is not a space of fanfare, or title or salary or prestige.
My hands in the soil, I am home. My hands in the bread dough, I am connected. It has taken years of withdrawal from the public sphere for this to be so. The voices still haunt me; the voices that demand production, accountability, contribution in narrow bands. Perhaps it is the steely Presbyterianism on which I cut my theological teeth. Perhaps it is being the oldest child. Perhaps it is a belief in the responsibility of one to whom much has been given. Perhaps all of the above.
It has taken years for the voices to fade, those strident voices that remind me of my obligations. My determination, however faltering, is to find the place, the space, where the truth of my life flowers of its own abundance. I want to give, to act, out of the overflow that naturally occurs within gratitude, within connectedness. I'm getting there. I have increasing moments of presence. At this point, I might be swamped in sadness or guilt in the next moment, but I'm a little better at keeping a bit of distance, a bit of breath in between.
I don't know what this blog will become. I just know that I'm on the edge of some new way of expressing myself. I don't know if I'll give out the address, other than to a few close friends and family. I'm still not sure that this blogging thing isn't just another self-indulgent trick, a way for us to imagine that we are being creative and contributing, when all we are doing is keeping our attention on the minutiae of our personal experience.
So. . .I'll write, and we'll see what happens. This may be my tagline. . .we'll see what happens. . .

New Beginnings

Well, finally. . .
Taking the plunge.
Why today?
I don't know. There is something in the air. . .
Something more than the aroma of a winter stew on the stove. More then the scent of good dirt on the potatoes I just dug from the garden.
My friend Anita just finished presenting at the N. C. Governor's Conference on Women. She shared with the esteemed gathering her work on women's circles, on conscious aging, on living fully. She was and is supported by rippling waves of women throughout the world, women she has met with her full heart and her open acceptance. The candle continues to burn in my kitchen, to help carry her words.
My friend Peggy picks herself up once again and goes out into the corporate world, showing these people whose world is steeped in business that there is space for who they are, that they can bring themselves. She will help them, although right now she is sometimes unsure which Marriott elevator she is in, in which country.
Jean edits her new manuscript and labors tirelessly for the Fifth International Conference on Women; Rebecca promotes her new book on open adoption, Francis her book of poetry, Diana her novel. All work into the world with themselves wide open. . .
Emergence.
I shall get used to this. . .knowing that as soon as I learn how, I can post pictures of the gardens, of travels, of. . .well, I guess that too I will learn. . .
Meanwhile, back to stirring the stew. . .