Sunday January 3, 2010

Cold as a well diggers A*# out there!!
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It is now a balmy 5 degrees with a Weather Advisory warning out. Wind chill temps will be from 15 to 25 BELOW zero tonight and tomorrow morning. And I have to get up and take himself to work so I can go to the chiro. I've just let the dogs out for their last hurrah of the evening. They'll not be long...it's brutal out there. Although the young pup, Caylee is quite the outdoors dog and refuses to come in most of the daylight hours unless it's real bad...even she won't stay out for long at night.

I dream of the beaches of Waikiki...of snorkeling at Haunemea Bay, of climbing Diamond Head. Of palm trees waving in the breeze and the splash of waves against the accepting sands. I visited there in 1992 and have yet to make it back. I loved every single minute of the 8 days I got to stay there. I got a little island fever-ish at the end, but I would go again in a heartbeat. Especially in January, when the projected wind chill is bringing temps to 20 below....


I dream of living somewhere warm again, although I am fully aware that it will probably never happen. My youth is gone...the days when I could pull up stakes and go anywhere I damn well pleased. I am settling into middle age [finally] at nearly 57 years old. Attached to a place via the family and friends and things that have taken up residence in my heart. Moving proves entirely too much to consider when there are so many dogs and cats and birds and chickens involved. I do love the spring time and a good portion of the summer as well...before the heat gets so unbearable. But more than that, I am in love with this place I call home...my gardens and my lilies and my fruit trees. The modest little home and its flaws, the place at the pond where the turtles come up every year to lay their eggs. The way the honeysuckle and lilacs scent the air right up to my front door. The blackberry brambles that create a security fence around the sides and back of my yard. The way the tall tulip poplar blooms on branches so high that you cannot make out the flowers...only the splash of creamy yellow against the sky.
Even in the coldest part of winter, my trees and yard are brimming with wild birds. Cardinals, ruby red against the snow. Chickadees and Nuthatches and woodpeckers-Downey and Pileated and Hairy and Red Bellied and Red Heads. And don't forget the brilliant blues of the huge Jays as they swoop from tree to tree, flashes of cerulean startling all the other birds for a moment in their majesty.


Sigh...okay. Why would I ever want to leave here? Am I so fickle that a few weeks of this frostbitten insanity would be enough to make me up and leave all the rest? Of course not.


It's all just a dream on a cold winters night. If I pay attention, I can still smell the remnants of todays bread baking on the air.


And the smell of bread baking is always the smell of HOME. And I wouldn't have it any other way.



Namaste.