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.

Boom Clap

"Boom Clap - the sound of my heart, the beat goes on and on..."

Can't get enough of those two.  Maybe it's because I just got back from Nashville, maybe it's because I love their music echoing through the rooms in our apartment.  We need it in our little igloo.

I took the bus for the first time today, from UNH to Portsmouth.  My car is currently lodged safely in the driveway, away from those nasty roads.  One of my friends from Montana, told me that she probably has the opposite problem that I do.  She wants life to go on despite the snow whereas I'm terrified to drive my car through it.  And yes, I think, "No one should be out on these roads!  Why are things open??"

There's just so much snow.  I'd be okay with it melting - if this was the end of the storms.  Even though it's comical - I crack up probably because I'm actually cracking up... as in, going crazy.  I walked into our living room the other day to laugh outloud at that the snow that had crept up just a little bit more, covering 75% of our windows.  Last night, the plow guy shoved his plow right into our house, after another "Plow Guy Session" where we get the warning, stumble out of our apartment, and all work like little snow bunnies to unburrow our cars out of the driveway.  Last night, it was at 10 pm, during hanging-out-in-the-kitchen wine time.  C'mon now.

We become more like our indoor cat each day, cooky little soul that she is.  Soon, we'll all just be staring at the basement door - just like her - and burrowing on random spots on the floor, playing with candy wrappers and darting up and down the stairs.  I kind of want to toss her in the snow.  I kind of want to toss myself in the snow.

Not only has our household gotten hit with snow, but also with tragedy - the loss of my friend's (fellow apartment dweller/cat owner) brother to the hands of a heroin addiction.  The terribly strong hands of that addiction.  Not only has the igloo that we now live in brought us together, but also this incredible loss - putting our snow troubles into perspective.  The white powder out there really isn't that bad, on the grand scale of things.  We're all together and we're here - making mulled wine, filing out for the plow guy, freezing in the road as we pray we'll get out cars back in the driveway.  I asked another apartment-mate to bring home some sunshine and she brought home cinnamon roll dough.  Perfect.

Since Sam Smith had just swept the Grammy's, I felt I had to listen to his record.  I think it'll always remind me of these days, since it's been playing on repeat, along with that Boom Clap.

And it's with all of these things that we'll keep moving, spinning our tires, but with a little push from one another - we'll help each other through.

"C'mon to me c'mon to me now...."

From Above

Flying through the clouds, I stare and stare at the sea of white puffy puffs and wisps of air catching my eyes for minutes and minutes. 

Suggestion:  Don’t read the end of Farewell to Arms while you’re flying.  Not only is it tragic, but in my copy, it has an appendix of other endings Hemingway thought about trying, one of which is:

“That is all there is to the story.  Catherine died and you will die and I will die and that is all I can promise you."

Our plane bumped over a touch of turbulence as I read those words.  Death isn't something any of us have overcome ourselves, yet it touches our lives, molding them so forcefully.  As I sit up on my seat in the sky - 30,000 feet above the land - I think how precarious it all is, how the plane is perhaps one of the strongest vehicles yet entirely fragile.  As I was driving to Trader Joe's yesterday, I watched a tall light that hovers over the road fall over - so gracefully and quietly.  Thankfully, there seemed to be no people or cars in it's path.  The snow piles are gigantic enough to block my eyes from where it actually fell.  In reality, we courageously traverse the precarious sky every single day. 

And yet we continue, we traverse on.  From a conquest over the sea, across lands - horses to planes, 

plus cars and trains, to the moon in a rocket ship, through the air in pixels - moments held in my own hands - in pictures.  There is a miracle of flight, of light and of course, life itself.  

The Book Thief gives Death a different voice, where Death introduces themselves and talks a bit about their trade - how they see the world in color which "merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment" and how "I can be amiable.  Agreeable.  Affable.  And that's only the A's.  Just don't ask me to be nice.  Nice has nothing to do with me."  They go on to talk about their love of distraction and vacation:

"Still, it's possible that you might be asking, why does he even need a vacation?  What does he need distraction from?  Which brings me to my next point.  It's the leftover humans.  The survivors.  They're the ones I can't stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail.  I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise.  They have punctured hearts.  They have beaten lungs."

Here's to all the survivors, courageously fly through this precarious world everyday.

The Space Between

Our neighbor takes a rest before he finishes shoveling his driveway. 

This snow is becoming slightly overwhelming.  

This morning, my roommate grabbed her jacket and strapped on her boots to come out and help me get my car out of it's frozen puddle.  An hour later, we miraculously peeled it away from the layer of ice it had been lodged in, with one special ingredient: kitty litter.  I feel sorry for my car and can't imagine this heeing and hawing is good for its health; I'm scared it will hurt itself at some point - that the accelerator will shoot right out of the car during one of these rock-back-and-forth sessions.  Clouds of smoke from the burning rubber pour out each time.  The smell tells me that this just isn't right.  It's too much.  

As I sat in my kitchen, unwinding from a nerve wracking failed attempt to skid to school, I began imagining what the world used to be like, before cars and plow trucks.  Were the horses able to handle the roads better, or the walkers?  Updike captures some of those older sounds here in the short story Clarence from In the Beauty of the Lilies (p. 43):

"The clatter of horseshoes and iron-tired wheels on cobblestones was mixed with the receding friction of a Broadway trolley car and the occasional snuffling crescendo, punctuated by sharp coughs of frustrated combustion, of the horseless carriages, or motorrigs - Ford Model Ts and Oldsmobiles in the main - which the more advanced citizens of Paterson were inflicting in ever greater numbers upon the old uneven, dung-strewn streets.  The young century was thronged with a parade of inventions that amused Clarence when little else did, and the presumptuous, ragged, hopeful sound of a doughty little motorrig brought a ray of innocent energy, such as messenger angels would ride to earth, into his invalid mood.  The hoarse receding note drew his consciousness to a fine point, and while that point hung in his skull starlike he feel asleep upon the adamant bosom of the depleted universe." 

I like the part about "dung-strewn" streets - it reminds me of the advancements we've made, but the crap that can come with them.  Our inventions have helped us move around everywhere, but that distance can become hard to handle, too.  

The further I venture, the bigger the spaces between me and my world become; trips to family become plane rides or long drives and I find myself dependent on these machines to connect me with those I love or the work that I do.  Today no way to get to school and this past November, no way to get to my grandmother's funeral in Scotland.  It's tough to be torn between places, yet it's become a normal part of our lives: everyone and everything is everywhere.  I leave pieces of my heart all over the place - and it really hurts sometimes. 

As I write this, I can hear the plow guy and his compadres outside working on the snow and ice in our driveway.  So glad to know we are not alone in this, at all.  

Our driveway looks so much more hopeful now. 

Winter Storm Review

In honor of Winter Storm Linus

Here's what I remember, for January:

1/12 Wintry Mix moving up the East Coast causing me to delay driving up from NJ
1/18 Snow/Ice Storm leaving me stranded in Burlington, VT (not complaining)
1/24 Snow all day causing plans with MA friends (to visit!) to be de-railed
1/27 Blizzard Juno arrives, canceling classes on 1/27 & 1/28 (not complaining)
1/30 Snow flurries for most of the day, adding a few inches

In summary: Every 3-6 days, a wintry mix of some variety arrives in New England.

Things I have heard or said over the past week or so:

"I think my feet sweat in my boots and then the sweat got cold, so now they're cold again."

"Look at my hands!"
"Oh my gosh!  They're so red!"
"And dry... so dry."

"There's water pouring through a hole in our foundation."
"It sounds like we have a man-made pond down in the basement."
"It sounds like a waterfall."

"This chocolate is frozen." (Lindt truffles left in the car)

"I can't believe the water froze that quickly... well, actually I can." (Nalgene bottle just place in the car)

"You're car is on a sheet of ice."

"Who dumped this huge bucket of snow on our house?"

"I hope the power doesn't go out."

"The water in my shower just turned freezing cold!"

"What was that?!"
"I think it was a huge chunk of snow that just blew off that car."

"I'm not confident that they plow or salt the roads in NH."

"It doesn't matter what you're driving, when you hit black ice... you hit black ice."

"Open the door, open the door!" (to the car, while freezing)

"I don't understand why water is rushing down our driveway - isn't it too cold for it to be melting?"

"I feel bad for my car."

"When I start thinking about Winter, I realize how much I don't like it.  So, I can't think about it."

"So glad it's snowing again!"

Winter storm Linus should be joining us tomorrow, followed by another one on Wednesday.

Let's hope Linus leaves his warm blanket behind for us.