In a February Mood

There comes a point, after weeks of ungodly dark and dreary days, unbroken by any hint of sun or warmth, when one's own company wears thin.

It takes a lot to break me down, probably because I now have something concrete against which to measure any sadness, especially the slight, niggling sadness brought by dismal weather. So what. It's gray for months on end. My friend Hank said that bad weather looks worse when you're looking out the window. Get out in it. It takes a surprising amount of fortitude to go out, looking for adventure, when the light is as flat and dull as a mall parking lot.

But we do go out. We have to put some miles on the dog, and on me. I decided to follow my nose and pick a road I'd never been down (or, in this case, up). 

It's not hard to find those around here. 

To get there, we walked past this old jewel, moldering in an overgrown field. I've paid several visits to this house, but they've been in summer. I like to poke around abandoned places to see what denizens of their gardens have survived the neglect.

You can't kill a ditch lily, even if you try. Ah, this was a beautiful day at the old place, a not-February day. I had fun snooping around the foundation and outbuildings. Just the reflection of a blue sky in the window cheers me.

But now we are here in February, in the weeks before the woodcocks get back, and this is what we get: gray and brown and wet and not much else. Living here, I realized as I gazed at it this evening, would have been problematic even when the place was tended. Whipple Run lies between the house and the road, so you have to ford it to get out, and ford it again to get home. Not a big deal now, but let it rain torrents for a few days, and you've got a situation on your hands. 

Water will do what it will. It seeks the lowest point. Thus, what was once a driveway is now a streambed. We have a way of inviting water down our paths. We grade them until they're lower than the surrounding land, and water will always oblige us,  running in to take the low road. 

My boots were not up to the fording, so we walked on. 

Mood:

Ah, February, you old, cold, wet blanket. Are you trying to outdo your nasty sister January? 

I wonder what's up this road? 

First there was a pool with a nice sandbar, a little oxbow backwater. I scanned the muddy trunk of the drowning tree and found what I was looking for: mustelid tracks.

Hoping for otter, I settled for mink. Mink will do.

A light rain pattered on the surface of the water. We pressed on anyway.

Turns out there wasn't much up this road but woods, which was fine with us.

When I got to the top of the hill some messages came in on my phone. 

 Phoebe had rented a little smart car on La Gomera for the weekend and done some exploring. While I trudged down a muddy road in Appalachia, gazing at a house bound only for rot and ruin, she had made a pilgrimage to find a wee chapel she'd once spotted from far below. 

She was not disappointed. There it stood, sharp as an amethyst in the clear Atlantic sunshine.

And the climb up there had looked like this. Oh, what I'd have given to take that hike with her!

And she and Oscar had ended the day like this:

Oh, to be young and in love. 

I'll take middle-aged and still alive, with everything more or less still functional, because it's what I've got.

What is it that keeps us in place? Why do I choose to live in a place that weeps all winter long? Why does my daughter choose to live in the sunstruck glow of a rocky island, the sea all around her? That second question needs no answer.

Why does it not occur to me to leave, to strike out for someplace new?

I search for answers, and find I don't want to leave here. I'm scratching and clawing away at my house, throwing out what I don't need (nearly everything); trying to get it back in repair, so I can stop worrying about the rot and malfunction of it all, and enjoy it instead. It's a goal. The old furnace seems to need about a grand a year just to keep running; I've replaced everything you could replace on that damn thing.  I'm having new siding put on the tower, rooting out the wall rot on the north side (and wherever else it comes up.) Braced for the worst.

 I love working in my studio, starting new projects, watching for my old jay friends, and dreaming of seedlings coming up in only a couple more months. And then it will be garden time, and there's no place I'd rather be in garden time. And just as it's garden time, I'll take off on a book tour (see left sidebar of this blog). So there are things to look forward to, and boy do I look forward to them.

I'm choosing to vary my life with travel, to give myself enough outings to counter the sameness of remaining in place. I feel the press of time, the impermanence of my stay on this earth.  I have become one of those women who travel more, because they suddenly can. But I also travel more because I need to. I get so much more out of it than ever before. 

I'm trying to be kinder to myself, knowing that I'm still grieving. Something like this doesn't go away in a year. It becomes part of you, and it colors your outlook, not necessarily in a bad way all the time. It makes you grateful to be here. It makes you so happy to feel joy again, when it happens. It makes you expect less of life, having seen how easily it can be grabbed away. So when something good happens, you're just bowled over that it was so good. And when bad things happen, you measure them against the mother of all bad things, and they don't look that bad to you. Still, you're always looking over your shoulder, and I don't expect that to change. You have to keep an eye on something that big.

As the anniversaries, big and small, portentious and life-changing and merely depressing, parade by in my psyche, I find myself walking over to gaze at the house where Bill lived for a short time, where he grilled and laughed and played music, then suffered and died, finally leaving the suffering, and us, behind.

 I don't know what I expect to find by going over there. There's nothing I'll get from it but little  shards of memories, the sharp ones that dig in. There's no one to tell me I should stay away, so when I'm drawn there, I go. The place seems so much smaller, so diminished, without him in it. And he's not there. I sense nothing of him there. 

But I keep going. I guess I'm looking for a connection, the same one I'm looking for when I walk to his grave each morning. What doesn't seem right to me is that there should be nothing of him left here. The kids struggle with that, too, that feeling of being left alone. He had such a big soul, such a huge appetite for life, that it seems there should be a trace of that still around. Seems like he should be tossing the treetops on a still, wet day.

 Nothing moves, and not a bird sings. 

What I Got

This winter, man. This winter. The challenge has been to focus on what I have, not what's missing. 

Bought myself a peppermint-striped rose to offset the greenhouse blahs. You can't ask for flowers, but you can go out and get 'em yourself.  If I can keep it going until spring it'll be a real feat. Candy striped, and candy for spider mites, too.

The yard has been full of blue jays all winter long. Maybe not the blue jay I need to see, but I have to say it helps a lot to be in their company all day long. It has effected a sort of desensitization which I sorely needed. I see so many jays every day it's impossible to keep expecting one of them will be Jemima. I have surrendered to the void, and now I enjoy jays almost like anyone else does, which is to say like someone who isn't completely obsessed with them. Until this winter, I never realized what a huge component of my intense focus is obsession.  Watching that. But obsession is a powerful motivator. It would be hard to write a decent book about one blue jay unless you were a bit obsessed. 

 I call this member of the 13 Canucks "Frost." As in Robert. Can you see why I call it that?

Frost has snazzy white  feathers just above the bill, on its "front." A marker like this is gold. I've felt quite at sea with this new group of jays, but seeing one I can pick out and identify helps so much to tell me that yes, it's a member of the same group that's been here since Christmas. The group that isn't Jemima's.

February 5 was sunny. I couldn't stay inside, even though cold air makes me cough. I took off for Dean's Fork. Debated about whether to bring the big rig, with all the ice and snow and the possibility of falling on it. Brought it and never took a decent photo. Oh well. There are plenty of times I bring it and get something awesome. I spooked up a beautiful large owl, watched it fly, big and blunt-headed, waay down through the trees. It gave a hook to the left and the upward swoop that meant it was going to land.  Barred or great horned? How to tell?  I couldn't see it at all, but I fixed my binoculars on the last place I'd seen it and settled down to wait for a glimpse.  Look hard where it's hardest to look. Along comes a curious red-tailed hawk, bombing right into the section of woods where I thought the owl had gone. Oh!! The owl revealed itself, spreading its wings like a displaying turkey. It gave a querulous "Whooooaaaaa???" Its head swiveled--big dark eyes. It was a barred owl! I breathed a prayer of thanks to the redtail who'd blown its cover. It had been years since I'd seen a barred owl like that. My photos are a mess of twigs and haze. Never mind. It filled my heart and my eyes.

This day, the sky took center stage. It was Nevada blue, Colorado blue, New Mexico blue. It was the blue of a western bluebird, with some red in it, tending toward ultramarine. The air was rinsed clean. It took my breath away. That doesn't happen much in Ohio in winter. Gray flannel is the rule.

I found a little patch of mountain laurel atop this sandstone outcrop. That doesn't happen much around here, either.

I can hardly believe it, but I'm starting to see grouse again. They've been gone for more than 15 years. A beautiful red-morph grouse came tiptoeing up alongside me as I descended into Dean's Fork, and I was so flabbergasted I couldn't even raise my camera. But I did take a photo of his last two tracks before he whirred off like a warm brown football down into the draw. Oh, joy. To have grouse around again--it's too good to be true. There are some things you have to have faith will come back, some things you must wait for. 

The negative spaces of a winter creek. Water and ice are such free-handed artists. 

The play of sky blue on warm tree tones, the violet shadows on snow.

The sycamores, leaning impossibly out over the creek, throwing out roots to catch themselves in slow-motion. As big as sycamores get, wouldn't it make sense to root yourself farther back on the bank? But a tree doesn't have a choice. It takes root where it takes root, then deals with the consequences of cut banks and underwash, of having the rug pulled out from under it with every spring flood. I feel you, sycamores. 

Perhaps the thing that helps most about getting out is having to climb steep hills. 

I feel my heart pumping, feel my blood being cleansed of the sluggishness that sets in when you sit and think too much.

Soon enough, the sun went back to bed, and it rained and rained. The ground was so cold that ice formed on everything. 

The land took on a peculiar glazed look, the pines drooping with its weight.

At dusk, these deer wandered through a rosy wonderland. 

Worth clicking on these photos to enlarge them. I think this is Jolene and her band, but they're so wet it's hard to tell.

The ice has stayed for two days, stubborn and resolute. I've asked the sun for help and get nothing.

I love the textures of this unruly meadow. There's so much wood in it, but that gives it color, texture and life.

All day long, I've been watching for the tired sun to peek out from under the covers. I finally got perhaps ten seconds' worth, just enough to skid outside and grab a shot. I'll take it. Click on this one. There is glory out there for the finding, if you don't mind that it only lasts a few seconds.

Carry on, February. The woodcocks are on their way.