I plan to make stock. Finish reading someone else’s novel about Eliza Lucas Pinckney. Play “the rope game” out back with Finn. Stretch my neck. Fill a few pages. Just added a new category to this blog: “Winter”.
What was I saying about peaceful sanctuary?!! Finn is having one of his power puppy naps right now or I’d be pulling on my boots, or taking off my boots, or filling a KONG toy with peanut butter, or removing the book from his mouth that I thought was out of reach (but wasn’t) (have I shared the Chew Literary Ratings yet?), or training him to like the brush, or acting like I’m training him to like his crate (and failing), or texting a friend to babysit him while I go to the dentist, or watching the weather report with a slight air of desperation, or chopping ice off the steps while he watches from the other side of the door, or throwing his rope toy out in the deep, deep piles of snow, and laughing at his leaping retrieval and energetic waggling, or shoveling snow from the fence line because he is fractions of a second from realizing he can STEP over the fence (that honestly, even without snow he could take at a running leap), or walking him while busy scanning the horizon for other dogs, or constructing a barrier to place on top of some fabric laid out in the hopes of constructing some tiny quilts (the final kickstarter rewards) wondering if I’ve hidden them sufficiently (for in canine eyes they are mere provocative chew tidbits). So, the mantra ‘for now’ sounds perhaps like a spiritual mandate to live in the moment, but it is really part of the strenuous self talk necessary to get through this phase. Say and repeat 20 times: “this won’t last as long as it did with kids / this won’t last as long as it did with kids… ”
And, just for the record? I refuse to go to that place where I judge that part of me that has historically made life difficult for herself, in all kinds of ways… because I really, really don’t think this is about that, and even if it is — so what? We wanted a dog. We got a great one. And a lot of this is weather-related (the boots, gloves, the insecure perimeter, the cold, the tight channels of snow for walking) — and not about me at all. More snow on the way. And bitter cold, too. So!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a complaint. This is not a complaint. A public scream, perhaps. Perhaps, a flip side of yesterday’s post. Inspired in part by ‘hand stories’ showing-the-back-of-the-cloth post.
A big snow carries a hush… a quieting of the entire landscape. I don’t understand how or why, and I don’t care to know — it is so palpable and so delicious.
For those of us lucky to have shelter and little employment outside the four walls of that shelter, a big storm creates sanctuary, too. Suddenly there is nowhere to go. Nothing to buy. No appointment worth the venture. Add to that — the maternal attention and collapse of routines that come with a new puppy and time really turns in on itself. I am made both smaller and larger by the circumstances. My mantra is: “for now”.
And if I just keep going, as some of us fiber folks like to say, at some point there will be 48 or 64 or however many I will need.
Not a huge fan of jackets for dogs, especially for those canines bred to manage just fine in the Alps, but they are saying frost bite will be a risk after thirty minutes or less of exposure tomorrow, and Finn is very lean. So here he is, looking stylish in camo!
He did NOT fare well in his crate this morning for my much abbreviated run to Salem. Oh well. A little backsliding is not the same as failure!
Wondered as I took this picture what a House Series would look like if most of the house was out of the frame.
Capturing this little boy on his bike created a story. Where is he going? Is he cold (I was)? Who is protecting him?
And later, still with the idea of protection, I thought about Imagemaking as a form of Prayer. Not Artist-as-Channel, where any creation made in the zone (i.e. connected to holy source) makes the Making a form of prayer. But rather imagemaking as prayer for someone, the way a Unity Church group, for example, might pray for someone. Below combines at least 3 images.
