The Western Passage

It's funny how quickly things can shift into metaphor.

It was a beautiful day yesterday -- unseasonably warm so I decided to go outside, make myself useful, and, as my Dad used to say, "blow the stink off". The first blizzard covered the west sidewalk under four feet of snow, and I was determined to break through because (a.) it was becoming more and more hazardous teetering through the smaller drifts to get the mail, and (b.) I'm stubborn.

It took two implements to accomplish my feat -- a snow shovel for obvious reasons and a spade to crack into the ice layer. At one point I was standing atop the drift trying to gain some leverage, and, let's face it, playing king of the hill. Happily I had climbed down before the UPS truck pulled in.

About halfway through the drift, the voices started in: "People have heart attacks shoveling snow, you know."; "You won't be able to move your arms in the morning."; "I heard about a guy who was swallowed by snow and paralyzed when the snow shovel hit him in the head." All kinds of rational stuff. But that's the way fear works in my head -- in a quiet, niggly voice that sounds remarkably like a Sunday school teacher I used to have.

Then I knew I had to keep going -- because I don't always. I let silly things derail me. I back down or go around, throw in the towel. I can't afford to do that any more because there are things I really want to accomplish this year -- finishing my novel, getting rid of our unsightly outbuildings, putting in new flower beds. I couldn't let a little thing like four feet of snow defeat me even if I did have a heart attack.

Which I didn't. And my arms move just fine this morning. And now I can retrieve the mail without having to harness the sled dogs.

A Family of Book Lovers

Christmas cards started coming yesterday, and one of them was from my cousin Sue who has taken on the yearly job of creating a Keenan calendar -- birthdays and anniversaries and other dates important to the Keenan clan. She organizes pictures for each month and often chooses a theme. This year it revolves around favorite books and reading, an apt choice for a family where the schoolteachers are thick on the ground. Most of the women have an education degree of one kind or another and are guilty of an awful lot of literacy.

I was excited because I can't remember a time when I haven't been starting, in the middle or finishing a book. Even before I could read, Mom would pile us all in the big gray rocking chair and read to us -- the Churchmouse Stories and Danny and the Dinosaur.

I used to tote around a pile of those little square books every time we traveled in the car. Then I graduated to Trixie Belden mysteries with which I humiliated my sisters by reading at ballgames and church.

When my nieces were little, I loved finding them books -- Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipperumpazoo and Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. A couple of Christmases ago, I was delighted beyond words when Meredith climbed on my lap for a reading of The Adventures of Walter Kitty, the way we did when she was little.

I still like to find books for them, but now it's Water for Elephants and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But better than that, they're now finding books for me. Samantha just handed me a copy of Going Bovine and said she couldn't wait to talk to me about it.

Keenan literacy lives on!

Scenes from a Snowy Playground

We woke this morning to another snowy scene. Light fluffy stuff this time, not the heavy-duty storm variety. Shelby County reported fourteen inches of snow after the first go, but I don't know how they knew for sure after it swirled around in the wind for so long.

It was so beautiful on Thursday -- the air was so rich and clear -- that we walked around and discovered the lay of the land in winter. It drifts high around the house and close to the fence line.

We didn't find deer tracks, but the rabbits were coming out of the woodwork. There was a path coming around the granary that rivaled the Oregon Trail.

The snow plow finally got around to us Thursday afternoon, and Dave and I were doing the happy dance in the window. If the operator saw us, he must have thought we'd succumbed to cabin fever. It funny because we didn't really want or need to go anywhere, but it was the idea we couldn't.

He didn't clear the dirt road to our west and it's kind of nice to have a private drive. More people use that road than I would have believed, and they pop up over the hill pretty fast. So for awhile we don't have to worry about being surprised.

Let it Snow

Miss Kitty and Arnold are curled up as tight as two wooly worms, sleeping together in a box of straw. It must be cold if Miss Kitty will deign to cuddle up to Arnold, who tends to be a little smelly, like an old man who has missed a spot shaving and drooled onto his overall bibs. I've been eager for the first snow at our new place -- just to see what the place would look like, but I didn't expect a blizzard.

We stocked up on groceries as soon as the weatherman threatened, and our neighbor called yesterday to remind me that the electricity goes out easily, so we were prepared, but when I woke up this morning to dark and desolate, I suddenly understood the bleakness of Bergman's films.

Still. It is pretty -- or at least it will be when I can get out and walk and fall into a drift or two without freezing the nose off my face. All our windows have that swirled holiday effect that you see on Christmas cards, and I'm wondering whether or not my sled made the trip from Michigan.

Of Sap and Scent

I'm like a little kid when it comes to the Christmas tree. I'm impatient to get it up and decorated, and I'm always depressed when it finally has to come down or risk becoming a St. Patrick's Day mockery.

Dave and I googled to find a nearby Christmas tree farm (Geez, can't you google anything?) and headed out yesterday before the snow began to choose one. I refuse to settle on the first one I see, but it was so windy and cold that I settled on the fourth. Shaken free of dead needles and netted in Christmas red and green, then tied down in the pickup bed, our tree was officially adopted. I don't care how many needles I have to sweep up; I want a real tree with sap and scent and the battle to get it straight in the tree stand.

We've never opted for a themed tree, preferring instead the historic ornaments of his youth and mine. His dad had some really cool straw Scandinavian ornaments that he bought on one excursion or another. I have the ceramic angel Aunt Donna made one year, and penguins given to me by a student at my first teaching job. One of my favorite touches is a flock of fairies made of pink chiffon and white pipe cleaners, reminiscent of the 40s. I like to cluster them together on the tree as if they're harmonizing or communing or planning a Christmas surprise.

We add our own history every year by buying at least one new ornament together. One year it was a ball in the Michigan blue and gold; one year a Christmas pickle. This year to celebrate our new home, which is also home to dozens of red-headed birds, we found a woodpecker. It's so fun to dig through the boxes looking for favorites or rediscovering ones I've forgotten.

I've cleared a perfect space for the tree in a corner of the dining room where it can fill the room with greenery and the bay window with lights. It's as hokey as Holiday Inn, but I can't wait.