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?