For the Curious

I think we're out of the woods.  I hope. 

My mom recently said she was surprised that I hadn't posted more pictures of the snow.  I said I didn't want to think about it anymore.  Now that I can hear the birds singing outside, can smell melting water in the air, and the sun has been shining, I think it's safe to take a look...  

These photos are for those who are curious to know what exactly happened to the Northeast this winter.  Maybe you've never lived here in the winter, or perhaps you've moved away from the Northeast and have been feeling sorry for us or just curious as to what all the commotion is all about.  A handful of these are before and after shots that I just happened to take (because I do often take pictures of the same thing).

Hopefully, though I don't want to speak to soon, this is the end of a very snowy chapter. 

Tomorrow is March - Hooray! 

Back when things were bright and blue

Iced up

Piles and piles

There's the recyclables

Covered

Halfway up the fence...

Higher!

Thought it might be done...

Ah!

Back when things were all pumpkin

Before the next blizzard

Pretty

All the tools

Plow plow plow

Neighbors

Our front door

Poor house

Love when the sidewalks are cleared

Stop!

Up to the porch

Up to the garage

Windy February

Over the fence

Bigger than a car

Make way

The dead of winter

Ski to the bar

Thaw!

Up the Stairs

Ghost Town

Snowshoe to the bar

Good morning Sun and icicles.

This house always seems like a hobbit home to me.

Sledding hill

Down the drain you go!

I feel like this sign was a new addition.

Covering a three season porch.

Salty Slushy Muddy

Layer Cake

When walking felt like bouldering. 

Lonnnnnng icicles

Lovely night to sit outside.

Portsmouth is still pretty.

Eerie evening and a FREEZING cold walk.

Study Break

You can't beat Tracy Chapman on this one, but these guys brightened up my piles and piles of workity work work.  

And I - ee - I

had a feeling that I belonged

And I - ee - I

had a feeling I could be someone

be someone 

be someone

I can't say that these piles of work make me feel that way, really at all - but imagining that moment when you're finally out there, driving - driving fast - and everything seems like it's working out...

Well, I guess that's what this work is all hoping for.

Thanks, Tracy (and fellow cover artists).  

Thaw

"...as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before." - Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

I'm afraid it is too soon to yell from the mountain tops, but I did feel a spirit of Spring in the air this morning when I started my car and it didn't sound like a garbage compactor with something lodged inside it.  

I opened my door to the smell of water - wet puddles growing along the road.  I saw pavement on our street that has otherwise been a luge runway.  I could run out and start my car without a jacket.  My hands didn't break into a million pieces without gloves on.  Water is dripping off the long icicles above our doorway.  Slush has taken the place of icy snowy embankments.  

Hope is a practice.  It's moments like this where I remember the importance of hope in all things.  It's not an emotion to cover all sins, but one to carry you through to new light even if the tunnel seems particularly long and dark.  

My friend gave me a book of poems by Mary Oliver, which I've been reading through lately and pasting on this blog.  Funny enough, one of my favorite podcasts On Being has recently recorded her reading her poems herself.   

They are here and they are lovely. 

May we all hope for the thaw of so many things. 

Igloo

What a good friend.

I just read an article about the catastrophe of a winter it has been - a natural disaster of a winter.  I know large amounts of snow fall in other parts of the country, but I've never seen this many blizzards in a row here, piling inches on inches, and derailing so many of Boston's (not to mention it's neighboring regions) operations.  It's not as if we're not used to winters, but this one has been the one to top them all.  I've never felt so snowed in.  

Tonight, I got to see the mountains of salt being brought in by boat to Portsmouth.  The machines looked majestic in the lights from the street - piling salt on top of salt, ready for the streets.  Let's hope they don't need it all and that perhaps we've been through the worst of it.  Here's a poem to remind us of the beauty that Winter can be and that it will melt away one day... perhaps not soon... but one day... 

November

Mary Oliver

The snow

began slowly,

a soft and easy

sprinkling

of flakes, then clouds of flakes

in the baskets of the wind

and the branches

of the trees --

oh, so pretty.

We walked

through the growing stillness,

as the flakes

prickled the path,

then covered it,

then deepened

as in curds and drifts,

as the wind grew stronger,

shaping its work

less delicately,

taking greater steps

over the hills

and through the trees

until, finally,

we were cold, 

and far from home.

We turned

and followed our long shadows back

to the house.

stamped our feet,

went inside, and shut the door.

Through the window

we could see

how far away it was to the gates of April.

Let the fire now

put on its red hat

and sing to us.

Penguins

I'm a believer in art.  I drew this little picture en lieu of reading more words - articles, pages, and left-brain kind of thought. I felt the need to exercise my right brain; it just hasn't gotten nearly enough in the past few days.

I believe that right brain exercise is important: art, beauty, imagining, creating.  I start to feel like a broken down machine - with a headache - when I neglect those parts of myself.  So there you have it - a penguin greeting us in our window.  Hello there!  

Maybe it's because of the Irish in me, but I do feel that laughter is a great anecdote for fear, stress, and enraging scenarios.  Sometimes I am probably at risk of resorting to it too often.  There is a place to be serious, but also one to imagine, pretend, and to frankly enjoy and "make fun" of whatever is happening.  

Otherwise, how can you begin to find perspective?

For Cody

I've heard the word "honor" used in certain circles more and more - that we want to honor another person with our words and actions, and honor ourselves, too.

Today, I want to honor my friend's brother who died last Saturday of a heroin addiction.  His name was Cody.  I didn't know him, but I do know that the severity of addiction touches the lives of many people.  Unfortunately, the disease is stigmatized - like so many things - and it becomes difficult for people to get out of it, for a variety of reasons.  Treatment options are not as plentiful as they should be, and the social ramifications of one leaving their community behind in order to approach and carry sobriety may not always be fully acknowledged or understood.  

The Book of Common Prayer has a prayer for specific instances, one of which is For the Victims of Addictions.  Whether one believes in God or not, the prayer seems to honor and gather hope for the ones who find themselves caught up in it:

O blessed Lord, you ministered to all who came to you: Look with compassion upon all who through addiction have lost their health and freedom.  Restore to them the assurance of your unfailing mercy; remove from them the fears that beset them; strengthen them in the work of their recovery; and to those who care for them, give patient understanding and persevering love.  Amen. 

I'm not able to attend the funeral, as there is yet another blizzard joining us this evening and I have developed a healthy PTSD toward snow now (hope I'll overcome that fear).  But as they say in yoga, I'm sending good vibes from my heart to my friend, her family and everyone gathered there to honor her younger brother.  As a fellow older sister who has a younger brother, I can only imagine the depth of this loss.  We remember you today, Cody, and will continue to as you rest in peace and are loved on this Valentine's Day. 

To What is Lovely

It's not everyday that you get to hang out with a great lady, but today was one of those days.  Here's a poem that captures afternoons at this wooden palace on a beaver pond, and how the present becomes a present:

Snow Geese

Mary Oliver

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

       What a task

           to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,

    and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

One fall day I heard

  above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound

I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

a flock of snow geese, winging it

    faster than the ones we usually see,

and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

so they were, in part at least, golden.  I

held my breath 

as we do

sometimes

to stop time

when something wonderful

has touched us

as with a match

which is lit, and bright,

but does not hurt

in the common way, 

but delightfully,

as if delight

were the most serious thing

you ever felt.

The geese 

flew on.

I have never

seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

Maybe I won't.

It doesn't matter.

What matters

is that, when I saw them,

I saw them

as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

"As if delight were the most serious thing you ever felt"... and perhaps it is.  After all, "light" is caught up in the word itself - and we all know we do a little bit better with a little more light, from both the sky and people.  

Here's to all the light and lights in our lives - "what matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them". 

I bought the brightest ones.

Neon flowers

White roses

Whooosh

Up to the window

Higher than a compost pile

Walk on

The wind whipped up the snow at just the right time.

Tracks of something...

He's got the right idea

Pretty

Hello.