for snow, for christmas, for grandpa and big sister, caught in the storm. one of the last rooms at the holiday inn, a half hour and yet three long days away.
chains! two sets the right size! and a break in the weather. and my husband, the christmas hero, bringing home the best gift.
snowmen, a melting fort in the shape of a heart, icicles, seemingly endless wet boots and snowpants draped over heat registers or hung over curtain rods. decorated gingerbread from a kit. lavishly, lovingly sprinkled sugar cookies made from scratch and a nice madagascar bourbon vanilla, a tablespoon where a teaspoon was called for.
friends over, lights, candles, more baking, an unexpected parcel from faraway, and underneath it all the sweet pine sighing scent of the tree cut to fit the corner.
small house and six people plus two cats, cold nights with cheerful fires and then rain, melting the snow, and happysad goodbyes, and waiting now, again.
Monday, December 29, 2008
waiting.
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4 comments:
Fine picture: a memory well worth printing, then keeping safe for the future.
thank you, peter. I may take the shocking step of printing photos soon. this was just a cameraphone one, easy to take and email to myself and then post. the camera has two cards - 2.5 gigabytes in total - of pictures I have to either delete or print. I've got so many digital images on hard drives I have vowed not to add any more, at least for now. at least not until I print some. plus I've got pictures printed from years ago, mine and some going back generations, that need desperately to be organized and put into albums. though I've almost decided just to put them into albums and worry about organization later - better, I think, a hodgepodge of images in books at least than a mess of them in boxes.
this was all the more beautiful for its spareness... waiting is a fearsome activitiy
pauline, thank you. well of course tom petty would tell you the waiting is the hardest part. I'm not sure if I agree entirely, but waiting can be difficult, especially if (like me) you slip into indulgences of various sorts in the meantime, worry, despair, boredom and so on.
bah. that was last year. this year I've only slipped once, waking to dull dark cold windy grey rainy sky. but I read a bit in a book my daughter left for me, and it took me out of myself, and when I came back I found myself lighter - emotionally, of course, as light doesn't describe me in the physical sense, I joked to my father over the holidays when he offered me some more bacon at the breakfast table that I didn't need bacon, I already was bacon, and he laughed, it was a sweet moment, he doesn't laugh as much as I wish he would - but anyway. the reading was good. I'll read more this year, talk and write less. or maybe do more of all three. who knows.
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