-18 degrees

NPR told me this morning that the wind chill was -18 degrees. I'd just come in from walking Miss Daisy, who, despite the coat I'd put on her to keep her warm, refused to actually work.

"But I protected your little paws with that Musher's Secret stuff! That worked last year during the Polar Vortex, and it's nowhere near as cold now," I reasoned with her.

Miss Daisy looked up at me, brown, buggy eyes growing larger and sadder as she dug in all four paws and became a deadweight at the end of the leash.

"Fine. Fine. Your little sad face wins," I said as I leaned over to pick her up. Miss Daisy burrowed her face into my neck and sneezed, and my skin instantly chilled and I instantly feared frostbite.

My little feet weren't so happy about being outside in -18 degrees at 4:45, either. On Saturday—just before the first snowfall of 2015—the zipper on my right snowboot pulled apart. The boot sort of flops around on my foot now, making it rather useless, and I tried (oh, how I tried!) to get it back together. There were even needle-nose pliers involved.

But this is beyond my abilities; the boots need the help of a cobbler (like, the person who fixes shoes, not the dessert, although maybe filling my boots with cobbler would help keep my feet warm and sweet). I'm taking them in tonight after work, and until they're fixed, Miss Daisy and I will bond over cold feet and how we both want someone to pick us up.

never take a pug to a carnival

"But seriously, imagine this: A pug on a Ferris wheel is an awesome mental picture."

This is pretty much the level of conversation I'm up for an a Friday night—dreaming about adorable pug pictures that would instantly go viral.

With some coaxing, I might also be up for talking about how my day went or what I'm looking forward to over the weekend, but let's face it, by Friday night, I just want to wear my pajama pants and lay on the couch.

On this particular Friday night, I was doing just that, only replace the pajama pants with workout clothes. By some burst of energy miracle, I had made it to the gym after work, where, while doing sit-ups and push-ups and calf raises, I imagined that I was already at home, curled up under an afghan knitted by my great-grandmother.

Workout motivation tip: You know how you're supposed to envision how you want your workout to go? I do this when I have a race: I imagine what the race will be like, including such realistic details as "that panicked feeling you get when you realize you need to spit but that there are too many people around to do it safely."

A little mental preparation can help in a big way, but then I've found that when you're actually in the midst of your workout/run, it's best to imagine what you'll be doing later. Pep talks can only get you so far; it's far better to imagine the coffee you'll drink at brunch after the race {and the bacon! Never forget to think about the bacon!}.

Or in the case of my Friday night workout, it was better to think about laying down and not having to think or do much of anything for the rest of the night. Distract yourself: That's my workout motivation tip, one I hope you'll use and report back to me about how wonderfully it worked.

So I was on the couch, texting a good friend who was being a good sport about my typical Friday-evening-randomness, when the pug on a Ferris wheel image came to me and I sent her that message above.

You're probably either in awe of my imagination or concerned for my thought process {I'm assuming the former, by the way}, so I will offer this by way of explanation for my pug image: The carnival is in town.

Doesn't that explain everything? How could I walk past a Ferris wheel every day on my way to the train and not think of how a pug would react to spinning high above her town in what is essentially a swinging bucket?

{You're thinking about it now, too, aren't you?}

Here's how the conversation went:
Me: I am about to walk Miss Daisy, but then I really need to eat. You know those times when nothing sounds good? This in one of those times.

Allow me to jump in here and say—I had so much to eat at home. There was roast chicken and vegetables, eggplant gratin, a salad with an orange balsamic vinaigrette, and pear clafoutis. I could've made French toast or an omelet or a grilled cheese sandwich. Heck, I could've eaten cereal.

But every time I thought of something to eat, my inner toddler screamed, "NO!" That girl is so demanding and picky sometimes.

Me: BUT WAIT: I just had an excellent dinner thought. The carnival is in town. CORNDOG.

Patient Friend Who Listened to My Dinner Decisions and Hopefully Didn't Roll Her Eyes: Corndog all the way. If I were with you, I'd get a funnel cake. And cotton candy.

That response proves why we're friends and why I'm 99% sure she wasn't rolling her eyes at my dinner quandary: because she gets just as excited by food as I do.

Me: Then Daisy and I shall ride the Ferris wheel.

Patient Friend: Hahahahaha....

Me: But seriously, imagine this: A pug on a Ferris wheel is an awesome mental picture.

And to the carnival we went, my pug and I. The night was cool—shockingly cool for mid-May, and I don't just mean that I had to wear a light spring jacket. I mean that it had snowed earlier in the day, an occurrence that flummoxed us all, even though we have just survived the coldest, snowiest winter I can remember. Snow in mid-May? What are we, Minnesotan?

I formed a plan as I walked over: if there were a lot of people at the carnival, Daisy and I would keep walking and I would force myself to suck it up and eat some roast chicken at home, even though that is no corndog. Crowds tend to overwhelm her, and I didn't know how safe it would be for a pug in a carnival. She might be taken in by one of the carnies, unaware that the games were fixed and she'd most likely not win a new stuffed animal.

But the cool night kept most people away from the carnival because who wants a lemon shake-up when the temperature is much closer to freezing than you'd like to admit? Giving Daisy a few notes on dealing with carnies, I walked her up to the corndog stand.

As I paid, I felt her tug on the leash, and I looked down to see an absolutely panicked pug staring up at the Ferris wheel.

It must've been the bright lights—don't they draw us all in? But given how Daisy was rooted to the ground, frozen as all those bright lights twinkled towards her from the slowly-rotating Ferris wheel, I can only assume that it looked like some sort of giant fireball coming straight at her.

While I know she couldn't possibly have understood that 1) I had suggested taking her on a Ferris wheel, 2) I had most definitely been joking when I said that, and 3) pugs aren't allowed on Ferris wheels to begin with, I still felt bad for even thinking about it. You would've, too, if you'd seen her cower from the Ferris wheel. In fact, if you had been there, you probably would've been yelling at me at this point and taking away my corndog.

I bent down to reassure Miss Daisy, and my movement broke her spell. She looked away from the fireball, shook her head, and suddenly realized that all around her was a magic land of dropped food. French fries. Corndog sticks that still had some breading on them. And her favorite: chewed gum.

She did her spin of excitement and took to licking everything she could find that looked like food, and even some things that were clearly just rocks.

Oh, the carnival! It holds such possibility, doesn't it? One minute, you can be rigid with terror and the next moment, you can be eating bad-for-you food. This is what we all know about the carnival, and this is what Miss Daisy experienced for the first time on Friday night.


------------

PS I was going to insert a picture of a pug on a Ferris wheel, but the Internet holds no such picture that I can find. I believe this is an untapped adorable picture market.

I did, however, discover through auto-fill {you know, when Google tries to guess ahead to what you're searching for, based on what other people have searched for} that the following searches are popular {as they should be}:

• "pugs riding in cars"
• "pugs riding unicorns"
• "pug riding a Roomba"
• "pugs in The Hobbit"
• "pugs in fancy dress"

let it snow

"The thing I don't like," I told a friend as we drove through Glen Ellyn, "are people who still have up their outside Christmas decorations. I realize that it's been -40 degrees out and snowy and dangerous, so I can cut some slack for still having the decorations out. But why do they still light them?"

I was speaking specifically about this house that still has up those blow-up outdoor decorations. You know, the kind that inflate with a fan and tend to dance around a bit, as if Santa and his elves are studying to be Elvis. They're noisy and they're big, and even though we are now months from Christmas, I can't think of them without feeling quite bah-humbug.

And I can't help but think of them since a house in my neighborhood still has them up.

"Christmas is long gone! Let it go! It's practically spring!" Perhaps because I don't have enough to be frustrated about in my life, I decided to make up some aggression and stress related to Christmas decorations—maybe, but I'm going to think about that later. Right now, I'm going to say:

BLESS THE GOOD LORD, IT'S PRACTICALLY SPRING.

In fact, wait, no, let me revise that: as of today, IT IS SPRING.

We have made it, everyone. It has been a long, cruel, strange, record-breaking winter, but we have survived, and for that we deserve a prize.

Prizes I Would Accept Related to Spring

• Tulips
• Sleeping with the windows open
• Asparagus
• Taking Little Pug for a long walk and watching her try to jump over puddles as all the snow melts
• Speaking of which: MELTED SNOW {so I guess I'm saying that I would accept water as a prize}
• Reading outside
• Green grass
• Daffodils
• People taking down their Christmas decorations

Ah, yes, the Christmas decorations. I think it's safe to say that I was ranting about them because I was upset that it was March and still so snowy and icy out, but it's illogical to be upset at the weather. I took it out on Christmas decorations instead, which, by the way, is the smart way to handle frustration: displacement and getting upset over something trivial.

After I finished my rant, huffing and puffing as I glared at the Santa blow-up, my friend cautiously said, "But don't you still have up a Christmas wreath inside?"

Oh.

Well.

Technically, yes.

But really, when you think about it, why limit wreaths to just Christmas time? They are, much like snowmen and salt-stained snow boots, a winter decoration. They bring the cheer of that holiday season—when we all marvel at having a tree in our house—into what would be the more blah months of January and February.

Yes, that sounds good.

I tried this reasoning on my friend, who said nothing in return and instead let a pointed silence fall as the best way of pointing out my hypocritical ways.

I wondered, at that point, if I should also remind her that I have on my kitchen windowsill this wooden cutout thing of snowmen. One of them is holding a sign that says "Let It Snow."

Now, clearly, that is a winter decoration, but keeping it up all the way through March may have been sending mixed signals to the weather. A wintry mix, if you will.

On the one hand, I say that while the snow is lovely, I believe it should be done because I'd like to go outside sans snowboots for the first time in months.

On the other hand, I stick a sign by the window encouraging MORE SNOW.*

And on both hands, the only conclusion is: I brought all this snow on us by leaving up my snow signs for far longer than I should.

I am sorry. I will buy everyone tulips to make up for it.



* I should also point out, but in a place that maybe not many people will read it**, that I also have a cross-stitched decoration up on my bedside table—it's of a snowman, and my grandma made it. He looks delighted at the snowflakes all around him {as he should since they're his lifeblood}, and he's grinning at a sign that says "Let It Snow."

** And I should point out that on my kitchen window, I have these fun sticky letters that spell out {of course} "Let It Snow." Man, I really seem to be stuck in an obvious rut with my winter decorations.

when the world soaks up the winter

This morning, walking the little pug, I smelled spring. That smell of thaw and melt when the world is soaking up the winter.

Oh, I know it's just a passing promise for now.

More cold weather is coming over the weekend, and this smell of spring will disappear into that frozen smell of car exhaust. That is the smell the snow takes on after just a day on the ground. Turning gray, it is an ugly reminder of the price of transportation, just as the soot-covered cathedrals in Europe were a reminder of the price of industrialization.

When the snow turns gray and the air is so cold, all I can smell is exhaust(ion).

But no need to think of that now, on this day when breathing in the air feels life-giving {as I suppose it always should, but when it is -3 out, breathing in feels like a struggle}.

No need to think of the cold to come on a day when you can just start to see the grass emerging from under the snow—just at the edge of the sidewalks. It's matted down, probably experiencing the grass-equivalent of what happens to your hair when you wear a hat for too long, only in this case, the hat is the snow that has been crushing the snow for what must've been years.

It has been years since I breathed in warm air while walking the little pug, hasn't it? That's what my soul seems to remember, but smelling the spring this morning made my soul remember that there are warmer days to come. Soon.

the icy danger

For just a split second today, she thought she was going to fall. A slip of the foot on a sliver of ice: the winter is full of dangers.

No, more than that: the world is full of dangers.

In that moment when she almost fell and she caught herself thinking of the world's dangers, she did a very meta thing and thought about her thoughts. Why did her brain jump so quickly to the World's Dangers? In just one flash of a second, she went from admiring the flurries—and oddly enough, thinking about McFlurries from McDonald's, a place she never goes {or will never admit to going}—to wars, gang violence, starvation, disease, drive-by shootings, car accidents, and heart attacks.

Why didn't she think of ice skating, which was what she was essentially doing? Sans ice skates, of course, but the concept of gliding on the ice was there. The night before, she'd watched the opening ceremony for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games while eating popcorn for dinner, and beyond making her want to re-read Anna Karenina, it had made her want to ice skate again.

So here she was on a walk doing just that, skating on the ice, but it didn't feel like an adventure. It felt dangerously close to walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, head up, looking straight ahead, and just sure that the next stop would send you careening. Exhilarating, yes, but precarious and fraught {what a word with an old English ring to it!} with danger.

To slide on the ice is to be out of control.

To stop yourself from falling is to know how to control that out-of-control feeling.

Is there a life lesson in here? She thought this as her arms flew out to her sides, re-balancing her body and steadying her once again.

Oh, it's probably something along the lines of how you never know when you're going to fall.

Or maybe it's how you can't always stop yourself from falling, and that even if you do fall, it's all right. You will be all right.

She knows this because she has fallen before, which is probably why she jumped so quickly to thoughts of danger when really, all that was happening was a little sliding.

For someone like her—someone used to being surefooted and steady—any reminder of unsteadiness feels like a fast slide {a luge race, continuing the Olympic theme} into danger.

She's aware as she keeps walking that she's thinking both metaphorically and literally: she is surefooted and rarely slips, but she's also steadfast and methodical and rarely out of control.

So much self-analysis! And on a morning walk through the snow—the kind of light, airy snow that skiers would call powder but that she calls kickable snow.

With a glance behind at the icy patch that almost made her fall, she moves ahead, scattering the snow with a few kicks—now always checking for that next icy danger.

running through the woods on a snowy morning

As part of February Fun, I've set up a personal challenge: Run every day. Because what could be more fun than a physical challenge? And doesn't running during the coldest, snowiest winter I can remember just exude fun?

Of course I run a lot, but I don't run every day—and certainly not during February, when the gym has lost its luster and it's been so long since I've been able to consistently run outside that I'm starting to forget that I ever liked running in the first place.

To get through February, exercise-wise, I decided I needed to jump-start my love of running with a personal challenge {one of my most effective ways to motivate myself—that and any gold star-based award system}.

It doesn't hurt that this re-sets my definition of exercise success, just at the moment that I'm starting to beat up on myself for wimping out on going to the gym when it's -35 out with the wind chill and just when the idea of getting on the elliptical, treadmill, or bike makes me angry. I can't imagine being on that machine for a minute, let alone the 30 that I'm supposed to get 5 times a week, according to every doctor ever.

But run every day, even if it's just a mile? That re-sets the goal. That re-sets the joy.

I got this idea from Runner's World, which had a challenge in the November issue to run every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's. It was inspired by a guy who ran every day for something like 42 years, which highlights the problem I have with Runner's World {or really, running in general}: No matter how great of a runner you are, there is always someone who is {often literally} steps ahead of you.

In truth, this is more a problem with my competitive nature, but I spend most of my time while reading Runner's World thinking: You people are crazy...no, wait, I think I could do that.

For a competitive perfectionist like me, the running community is the right place to be. It is more about just getting out there, no matter your ability or time, and that's why you often see race winners giving high fives to the joggers stumbling over the finish line of their first 5k.

"You can do it," we all say to each other, and if there's one thing that running teaches you, it's that your definition of success is the one that matters—and that that definition can change.

Right now, my definition of running success is making it through the winter one step at a time. This isn't the time to chastise myself for not running 5 miles every day, nor is it the time to compare myself to people who do run outside, come snow or come ice. This is the time to be happy I'm out there, no matter the distance or if it's on a treadmill or if it's an ugly run.

So, the run-every-day challenge began today, when I am at a retreat center in Plano, IL. This place is a log cabin lodge built in the 1930s; there is no exercise room with treadmills, exercise balls, and a full-wall mirror you want to avoid looking at. If I wanted to run, it would have to be outside.

There is a nature trail around a lake, a wooded path that goes past cornfields and gives the impression of being somewhere you could run into Jo March and her sisters. I was enthralled with this idea: We've had quite a bit of snow and just think of running through the woods on a snowy morning!

I remained enthralled by this idea when I opened the curtains this morning and saw it was snowing more, just as the weatherman had said it would.

I remained enthralled as I layered up and pulled on my gloves and headband, laughing a little when I realized I'd forgotten my neckwarmer and would need to wear the very pretty scarf my dad had knit me for Christmas.

In fact, I remained enthralled until about halfway around the lake, when I had yet to run into Jo March and I realized that running through fresh snow is akin to running on a beach {leg muscle tiredness-wise} without the benefit of being on a beach.

Here's the thing about running: If you get tired halfway through, that doesn't magically transport you back inside, curled up on the couch with coffee. Only your legs can get you home, and crabbiness is not a power source for going faster.

Running teaches you to make the most of where you are, so this morning, I stopped running for a just a minute and really looked at where I was.

I was so far out in the country that there was no traffic noise. The only sound was the falling snow; it's easy to forget that snow does have a sound, light as it may be, when you live in a place of train whistles, sirens, and the persistent hum of cars.

The snowflakes hitting my face—I could feel them melting as soon as they touched my skin, and I stood in marvelling solemnity for a moment that I live in a world that can be snow covered one day but sprouting new life just a few weeks later. This world really is full of surprises.

Looking to the lake, I imagined ice skating and suddenly remembered ice skating with my sister at our dad's hunting club, Crystal Lake. The ice was rough, but the caretaker had cleaned a patch, and we were zooming around in circles, laughing when we fell. One of us—I don't remember who—discovered a fish frozen in the ice, his eyes wide open as if the ice had descended on him all at once and caught him by surprise. How does that happen, we wondered aloud to each other as we skated away from that frozen life.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, I thought. Robert Frost easily slips into a moment like this morning, and I had another half-mile to go before I—well, not before I sleep, but before I finished my run.

Reinvigorated, steeped in the quiet joy of a morning run, I kept going. It was just a little run, but I did it. I was out there in the snow, and I ran today, on this first day of February.

the snow this morning

The snow this morning, it glistened and glittered.

And have you ever thought about how so many words we associate with light and shining begin with that gl-? It's a guttural gulp for expressing something so airy and bright, but English is a funny language. I can say that because I once took a class on morphology—how we put words together—and my mind glowed with excitement when I learned this gl- thing.

It's a sound, a building block of language, that English speakers, mostly unwittingly, associate with light. Given a very unfamiliar word beginning in gl-, most of us, without thinking about it too much, would very likely define it along the lines of glisten, glitter, gleam, glint.

We would hear this unfamiliar word, and if we were from a certain part of the country and it was a certain time of the year, we might think about the snow glistening and glittering.

I did the morning. I had slept much later than normal, but I justified the skipped morning workout by saying to myself {s I lay a-bed}: You swam a mile yesterday. The distance stretched out in front of me, and I stretched my legs, resettling into my flannel sheets and down comforter.

Sometimes, you have to cut yourself some slack; I'm trying to learn this.

I took an extra-long walk this morning through the brisk February air, and I stopped and admired the snow. Sometimes, you have to do that.

a strange winter

And what a strange winter it's been. Prepared for the worse, we have gotten the mildest.

Months ago, the hardware store put up signs by the space heaters, the insulation, the firewood, and the kits for covering your windows with plastic.

The signs read: This is predicted to be the worst winter on record. Prepare now!!

It had both an apocalyptic and Boy Scout-ic feel to it, that sign, and standing in the aisle in front of rows of space heaters—designed to bring warmth to a sliver of your world, a corner of your own, a slice of your life—it was possible to feel small and cold in anticipation.

The signs suggested: Winter is inevitable. Cold is inevitable. You must find a way to create light and warmth in the dark because these months will be long and snowy and icy and dangerous.

But here we are in mid-February, and it rained last week.

When it did, the earth smelled like spring and renewal.

The world was sliced open to reveal possibility, new life, and a reminder of just how wrong we can be. The signs we look to are not always right.

what i said to my pug recently

Last Friday night, there was a snowstorm.

Come Saturday morning, the world was fresh and white and sunshiney, just as the world is meant to be after a snowstorm.

In getting my little pug ready for her walk out in the great white world, I put her snow boots on her.

"Miss Daisy, you have to wear your booties because the snow melt hurts your paws. Remember that from last winter?"

[Little pug cocks her head at me, as if to say, "I barely remember what I had for breakfast—and it's the same thing every morning, especially since you put me on a diet. By the way, I'm not fat. Way to give me body image issues."]

"Well, it does hurt your paws. You do this painful-to-my-heart hopping thing. I want to simultaneously laugh and cry and pick you up and make you keep walking. No pain, no gain, after all, little pug."

[She twists her head the other way and looks in general very worried because she believes her feet no longer exist. Once the booties are on, she can't feel her footpads touching the floor, and in the dog world that means "OMG, I NO LONGER HAVE FEET!"]

Later, as we stomped through the snow on the Prairie Path, a group of fearless runners came {carefully} running past.

"Hey, pug! I love your shoes!" The lead runner shouted this, and then the others all looked down as one at Miss Daisy.

"Yeah, great boots!"

"Love them!"

"You have such style!"

I shouted out a thank you on behalf of little pug, and then, as she looked up at me, confused as to why this group of bright-colored-tight-wearing people just all yelled at her, I said:

"See, other people think your booties are cool. Why can't you just trust me that they are?"

So this week, little pug and I are working on her trust issues.

And on my issues of talking out loud to her as if we were having a real conversation and she wasn't covered in fur.

It's a big week for us.

BONUS picture of little pug, in celebration of this big week

letter writing

I don't know if it's the snow falling outside The Pines Lodge in Beaver Creek or how I've been reading a book where letters play a vital role, but I've been curled up on the couch in my room here, writing letters to friends at home and feeling slightly nostalgic about a time when letter writing was so much more important than it is now.

There is something to writing on hotel stationery, isn't there? It makes me feel as if I've travelled back in time, back to before I could communicate with everyone instantaneously. This reminds me that I should write more letters—going through boxes of family documents reminded me of that, too.

Before, communication became its own treasure trove, preserving emotion and a way of life in a spidery hand.

Now, we have impersonal fonts and emails that are stored where? In the cloud? How will anyone ever know what life was like for us, if they don't have such physical documents?

Although I suppose that question contains its own answer: by our lack of documentation, people who come after us will know that life, for us, was more about quick, ethereal communication. We could communicate in the moment—anything we wanted from the very mundane to the very important.

It's hard to imagine a scenario like the one I stumbled upon when going through my family history:

My dear Anna,

Thank you so much for writing to Mother. You always were a faithful niece to her.

I'm sorry to tell you, dear Anna, but Mother was taken from us on the Monday after Easter. It comforts me to know she went peacefully, with all of us around her, but how I wish you'd been there, too. She asked after you in the end...

The news of Mother's death wasn't known to dear Anna for days. For days, she went about thinking her aunt was alive and that she hoped to hear back from her soon and oh, she must remember to write her a letter about this little thing that happened.

But her aunt was gone, and it's hard for me to imagine opening a letter like that now, eager in anticipation of news from the family, only to see those words: "I'm so sorry to tell you..."

It's not that Important Communication has gone by the wayside, simply because we've stopped writing so many letters in our own spidery or determined or illegible handwriting.

But when faced with a stack of stationery—when overwhelmed with things to share—it is easy to look back in time and say, "Part of me still wishes it were like that."

i made it snow

On Tuesday, I did the literary equivalent of a rain dance but for snow: I blogged about "Snow in the Suburbs" by Thomas Hardy.

And it WORKED.

I have power over the weather.

Or maybe I have power over you: I said that if we all chanted the poem three times, then it would snow.

And it WORKED.*

This is what was outside my office window today:

As an added perk, you can see what a dull office park I work in. At least there's a bush outside my window—something more than concrete and cars.

* It's in this asterisked note that I'll admit that I knew the weather forecast when I wrote about my incantation of Hardy to bring snow. It's hard to listen to NPR as much as I do and not know the weather forecast. Heck, it's hard to be a person who makes small talk and not know the weather forecast, especially in the Midwest.

So I guess I don't have power over the weather. Or you.

Sigh. I guess I just have power over my ability to listen to and retain information.

** This double-asterisked note is more for me: Self, buy snow boots. Your lack of preparation for the weather is appalling.

why is it not snowing?

At lunch today, I popped outside for a quick lap around the building.

This would not be an unusual statement in June or even September.

But in January? In January, we're supposed to spend our lunch hours holed up in front of a space heater, eating soup and talking about when we used to see the sun.

Okay, that's a bit dire and not really the truth.

But here is the truth: it's winter, I live in the Midwest, and I would like some dang snow.

Some darn snow.

Some damn snow.

I am upset enough about the lack of winter to progressively work my way towards a bad word.

Since tomorrow is predicted to be just as nice, I've decided to do the literary equivalent of a rain dance.

Except in this case, it's a snow dance. And I won't really be dancing.

The literary equivalent of a rain dance—but for snow—is Thomas Hardy's "Snow in the Suburbs." This is especially apropos because I live in the suburbs.

If everyone reads this three times {perhaps chanting?}, maybe tomorrow I'll wake up to snow.

If that doesn't happen, then I'm going to start a giant sing-along of the song "Snow" from White Christmas. You've been warned.

Snow in the Suburbs
Thomas Hardy

Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.

A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eyes,
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.

The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

comfort in the dark {a poem}

Winter begins
not with a blizzard or a flurry
but with darkness and
temperatures below freezing.

It's the solstice,
the very word speaking of
light and dark
and how our lives intertwine with both.

On this, the longest night of the year,
my kitchen smells of
sauteed mushrooms and onions
and of red wine—a kind of holy trinity
of comfort in aroma.

Standing over the white stove,
I stir the risotto, my face flush
in the steam that pirouettes from the
cooking rice.

Out my window, it is cold and it is dark,
but I do not notice.

Instead, I notice how risotto
all of a sudden
becomes creamy
as it drinks in the wine.

I notice how risotto
is about both patience
and action.

We long to categorize:
light versus dark
good versus bad
black versus white

But more often
we live in a messy blend
of looking for the light in the dark

of stirring the pot and waiting
for the risotto to transform.

That moment will come.

It always does.

white and clean {a poem}

The year's first snowfall is
of course
the topic of conversation at the office
as we all get our morning coffee.

"I'm not ready for winter," someone says.

"But it had to come, didn't it?" someone replies,
trying to be truthful and realistic.

The snow brings it out in us,
this ancient desire for honesty and fortitude,
conjuring up forebears
with a barn full of hay
and a cellar full of canned tomatoes,
ready for the winter.

The world has turned white and clean,
and we want to see the best in others
and in ourselves.

how i survived the cold

It is cold, it is cold. I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled into my snow boots.

{Name the poem I'm paraphrasing. Don't you love the random pop quizzes I give? Hint: the answer to this one has nothing to do with Jane Austen or Mary Tyler Moore or a musical, answers that frequently make their appearance in my pop quizzes.}

Chicagoland, after an epic blizzard last week, has now dropped to epic lows. Getting out of bed on days when the high is 2 takes guts and determination and a space heater right next to your bed.

But yesterday, I decided to show the cold that I was not afraid of it.

I am a Midwesterner; I am prepared for adversity. My ancestors lived through this cold in a farm house with no central heating and single-pane windows, possibly burning candles made from whale fat in order to be able to read past 4 in the afternoon.

It's in my genes to overcome the weather, and I also like to think that it's my genes to be inspired by the weather and to appreciate the opportunity to be out in the weather, even when the snot is freezing in my nose.

I am not afraid of the cold, and yesterday, I wore a skirt to prove it. A sensible wool winter skirt—lest you think I was kicking caution to the wind—with tights and knee-high boots. But still: a skirt.

Windchills of 20 below?

2 feet of snow on the ground?

You do not scare me, and I will still look cute. Despite the fact that the weather makes me want to always have on 7 layers of flannel pants and a hooded sweatshirt, I wore a skirt yesterday in order to put an extra little kick in my step.

It worked.

Take that, weather.

100% chance of snow

What with all this snow around me, a poem I wrote in college about a snow day came back to me. Re-reading it, I felt it was very...obvious. Bland. Trying too hard.

And so I did this revision, and it may still be trying too hard, but I like it more. Maybe enough to keep working on it. Or to let it float around my head like the snow and decide that it is good enough, just the way it is.



100% Chance of Snow, Accumulating 6-8 inches by Morning

“There's a 100% chance of snow for tonight, so kids,
you may not have school tomorrow.”
Terry Swails, the weather guy on KWQC TV6, said that and I believe him.

I 100% believe him.

I can’t sleep and
I stand
on my bed
on tiptoes
to see out the window
to see the white outside.

Sinking down
under the covers
I hide my head under the pillow and
pretend tomorrow.

I pretend what tomorrow will be.

I'm sledding down our hill,
the steepest in town,
our house at the top
full of hot chocolate.

The cold catches in my throat, even though
I'm warm in my pink bedroom.

I sleep with a smile,
content in my tomorrow.

A kiss from Mama at 7:30, and
I stand
on my bed
on my tiptoes.

Out the window,
it's sandy-scraped ugly streets,
grass peeking through barely white,
a melting mess
and our hill is an asphalt grimace.

That Terry Swails is a liar,
a 100% liar.

the light of the snow

What a massive snow, although massive is the wrong word. Massive implies so much brute force, and while the snow did carry much force—enough to stop a city of Big Shoulders—its force is, to me, more gentle.

Snow has force simply because it changes how we see our world.

It makes us sit down and take note.

It draws attention to itself just by being.

Look at how it piled on top of the dumpster, usually such a dull, everyday object I don't think much about. {Why would I think much about trash?}

Look at the ridge of snow outside the library entrance, a sharp angle of snow that is a small mountain chain. The endless peaks.

Look at the path carved into the snow. Look where someone ran through the thigh-deep snow, jumping with chutzpah into the frozen life. I get a little upset with them, whoever they were, for ruining the pristine white, the unbroken newness, but I can't blame them. I perhaps would've done the same thing.

Look at the light.

The whole world is blue in the early morning. A blue-gray, but not in a dull way, a mundane way, as gray normally implies.

The blue of a snowed-in morning glows from the ground up.

The snow is a blanket, and the world is cozy.

I know that's a commonly-known concept—the blanket of snow thing—but it's the early morning light that lets you see how true it is and how someone could think, even when it's 20 below, 'The snow is a blanket.'

Not that you'd want to cuddle up in it, oh no, but the early morning light makes you feel warmer and safer inside, looking out at the infused blue-gray world.

And then there is the afternoon sun. High. Clear. Hard-edged.

And that's when you see the diamonds in the snow, the sharpness of it.

The world is no longer gentle, but it's still inviting.

You step outside in five layers, inner braces for the cold that must be there to sustain such snow, and find it's not as cold as you thought.

Oh, sure, you can still see your breath, but the cold isn't crippling so much as invigorating and inspiring, and you start to feel the draw of winter sports, if only they didn't require so much bulky equipment.

The transformation periods of light are pivotal, too, and even though I perhaps shouldn't, I feel bad for people who don't get to see and know and be in that late afternoon winter sun.

People in California and Florida have beautiful, warm lives, I'm sure, but I wish they could be outside just once with a snow drift taller than they are, shoveling their driveway, and pausing, scoop of snow in the air, to sigh at the golden, clear light. The light sings at that late afternoon moment, and I want them to sigh in joy at it.

At their lengthening shadow.

At the bare trees, black veins against the yellow sky.

I wish people in California or Florida could know the sense of beauty and urgency this late afternoon sun brings, standing there with frozen fingertips but sweating under your parka.

Night is coming, hurry, hurry. There's chili or soup or casserole to be eaten in a warm kitchen, a quiet beacon surrounded by black darkness. The snow is obliterated by the dark.

Until the moon comes out and then the snow really shines.

snow was falling

I want to simply stare and marvel at the snow.

I am simply staring and marveling at the snow.

Outside my window, the scene is always shifting. There's always movement, even on this day after the blizzard.

The branches on the fir are bending and dipping with the wind, which has become a tame version of itself after the 60mph winds last night.

Snow jumps from the branches, perhaps too active of a word. Mostly the snow sits on the branches, but then a gust comes, and it's gone. I've looked away, and the scene has changed. The snow that was on the trees has joined the snow that's still falling. Falling falling falling, it just keeps coming.

The scene is always shifting, and when I opened my curtains this morning, I did it with the expectation of grandeur, which is perhaps a good way to begin every day. With the expectation of something big.

I opened the curtains as if I were a producer about to step out front to introduce my newest show, an attitude that makes little sense since I had nothing to do with this show of snow.

I closed the curtains last night, something I rarely do, precisely because I wanted that moment this morning. That moment to pull back the curtains and expect to be dazzled.

"Oh my word!" I squealed. I was a kid again.

The drifts, the patterns of wind on the snow, the utter quiet, the empty streets. The snow that was still falling. What a show.