Winter First Moon of the New Year
Cloudy with sun. Another cheery day here in Denver. At the moment though my heart yearns for the closed in, snowy gloom of a true northern mid-winter.
This is good weather for taking Ruth on a fabric shopping expedition and granpop will tag along to have lunch with grandma and granddaughter. I look forward to this and will enjoy it. Probably quite a bit.
But. It’s not the interior landscape brewed up by howling winds from the northwest, temperatures plunging far below zero and snow so thick going anywhere just can’t happen.
Those days find me in my Herman Miller chair, sandwiched between my desk with its two sloped editing and reading stands and my bookcase with reference materials for art history, philosophy, my current novel, the reimagining faith project and work with Latin.
A crackling fire burns in the green metal gas stove at one end of the small rectangle while my computer and printer punctuate the other. There’s a tea kettle nearby for heating water to a precise temperature for brewing different kinds of tea.
Here, my body and mind have learned, work happens. An odd sort of work, I admit. Work of the heart and the mind, a wordsmithy, data and information in and paragraphs out. No leather aprons or bulging biceps required. Nimble fingers help.
Yes this sort of work happens in all seasons and in all manner of weather, but there is none more suitable than the quiet of a snow silenced, cloud darkened day.
The desire for this weather and this place comes, in part. from missing fall and returning to a weak, almost non-existent winter. More than that though that yearning reflects a sense that I have identified my work, that I have it underway and I want to stay at it.
That is, however, my feeling this morning, here in the Best Western, before we connect up again with the grandkids. When we do, this will be the best place to be.