a snow day inventory

1. Listening: yesterday, while the quiet snow fell, I listened to Bob Dylan for old time’s sake, Blonde on Blonde, and remembered hearing “Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for the first time, walking through a residence hall at UVic in 1974 to pick up something from a classmate. I remember I stopped in my tracks and just listened. I’ve done that ever since, including yesterday, in the kitchen, when that song came on. I stopped, turned to look out at the snow, and listened to the entire cut.

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I put them by your gate, or sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

(You should wait.)

2.Sipping: is it counter-intuitive to drink white wine when the snow falls? Is it only nostalgia that had us sipping limoncello as we read in bed the other night, remembering the tiny glasses of essence of lemons from Sicily that our server brought us on the 2 nights, or 3, that we ate at Romano in Sarlat in November?

3. Reading: I finished Jean McNeil’s Ice Diaries: an Antarctic Memoir two nights ago, a chilly read (in some ways because the author feels very chilly) but also evocative, with some very lovely writing, though I felt that the strands of the narrative never quite came together.

4. Remembering: the summer swims in Ruby Lake, green water, a merganser swimming right along the edge of the shore with 17 tiny chicks as light as air. And how I’d wake in the night, excited at the prospect of a swim as soon as the sun came up.

With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims

5. Eating: because of the snow and because of a third of a bottle of sour milk I wanted to use up, I made pancakes this morning to have with blueberries and maple syrup. I have a cast-iron griddle given to me by an elderly woman 35 years ago and it must be 100 years old now. When it heats across two burners of the stove and when I add a little oil to its serviceable surface, it smells like summer mornings, my entire family here, some sleeping, a few children drawing or building with Lego or reading on one of the couches, wrapped in a quilt, and I stood by the stove and closed my eyes.

6. Wishing: see 5.

7. Finishing: yesterday I spent some time tracking down a few references for the long essay that will be a book in the middle of next year. Camille Paglia’s Glittering Images, Julia Kristeva’s “Stabat Mater”.

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace
And your basement clothes and your hollow face
Who among them did think he could outguess you?

8. Watching: the snow fall.

9. Wearing: the long plaid flannel nightdress John gave to me for my birthday, perfect for mornings like this, when I feel like the grandmother in When I Was Young in the Mountains, the one who fries okra and makes Johnny cakes and takes her granddaughter to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

10. Loving: how the fire sounds first thing in the morning as the cedar kindling (the old roof-shakes, split into sticks) catches. That crack. Then the heat.

11. Hoping: that the snow doesn’t impede our travels on Wednesday as we head down the Coast to the ferry, then the airport. Then Oaxaca.

12. Enjoying: my second cup of coffee, here at my desk, my small lamp shining.

13: Appreciating: that the power is still on, though it flickered 3 times as I made pancake batter. That I have a home, that I can sit with a long essay about to become a book, that I can follow the progress of my younger self through some difficulty and pain, and that I can recognize her in the mirror each morning, older, maybe not wiser, but somehow intact, though part of her life imploded, and she lives among the clutter of nearly half a century, and that each morning she watches me come down the stairs to the kitchen, flowers in her hair.

And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross and your voice like chimes