40 degrees and rain mid-December with buds on the trees, green grass, and new shoots poking through the soft ground.
Nick let a mosquito into the house last night.
I found a carrot and fleece hat on a piece of plywood outside, left out over Thanksgiving break, when a mere half-inch of snow fell and Olive and her friend Grace, desperate for winter, built a baby snowman.
This is winter in South Central Alaska now--all of us brooding in the damp darkness pining for layers of white.
No snow or ice means no pond hockey, no skiing, no sledding-- our snowshoes remain hung in the basement with all our unused winter gear.
I'm still using my garden shovels to stir the compost pile, kale still grows through the seaweed mulch I put on my beds for winter, the snow shovels lean against the shed, useless.
Our sun doesn't rise till almost ten and sets right before four-- and without the snow to reflect the moon the darkness feels more complete.
More final.
Too abrupt.
Like a period in a sentence that has only just begun.
I often struggle to get in the Holiday mood, it just seems to arrive too soon, the Christmas carols and red and green bows appear while I'm still lost in fall.
Not necessarily the season but the act of falling under the weight of the day. Too much to do. Too overwhelmed.
Always saying: Next year I'll plan ahead, I'll start earlier, I'll make gifts all year round.
But it is already this year, this holiday season, with Olive's birthday days away and Christmas close enough that the gifts I haven't bought will not make it to the East Coast on time.
They will arrive when the Wise Men did, sometime during the new year, when I will resolve to be better.
(And to stress less.)
(And to dance more.)
And maybe then--please say then-- the snow will fall (and fall and fall...), and we will forget it arrived so
late, we will merely tip our heads back and taste winter on the tips of our tongues.
Let it snow!! Well written Christy. Love the heart in the snow. Hope you have a white Christmas!!
Posted by: Susan Everett | 12/17/2019 at 10:16 AM