In December I read a charming little book called The Gnome Project by Jessica Peill-Meininghaus about how she decided to cure her lifelong habit of not completing projects by making one gnome every day for a year. No matter what! I wish I could tell you that I’ve decided to do the same thing ( I love gnomes!!), but I wouldn’t know where to start. Let the Peill-Meininghauses of this world handle that. However, I got to thinking that it might be a good discipline for me to do just one thing consistently every day for a year. So I picked going for a walk, taking photos, and blogging. Okay, that’s three things.
Today was another one of those so-cold-outside-and-the-wind-is-howling days that make it hard to keep up with this resolve. I enjoy being sedentary. And warm. Sedentary warmth is my happy place (I’d like to see that on an inspirational poster!). Dear reader, I went anyway.
Every day when I’ve been outside I see something worth capturing, something worth seeing and thinking about, something simple and beautiful. When I bring the camera and lift it to my eyes, it’s as if everything around me is shouting “Me! Pick me!”
I didn’t bring my camera today (I took the above shot right outside our back door). Too cold. But you can still see and hear what it was like:
The rhythmic “squeak, squeak, squeak” of my boots on the hard snow.
A lone tree in a snow-swept field holding down the fort.
Clouds scudding across the sky,
occasionally stepping aside to reveal a pale, impotent sun,
which, unlike its summer counterpart, I can stare at all I want
without burning my retinas.
Men out with their snow blowers, creating even more snow flurries.
Empty roads, lively winds, a moving veil of snow everywhere,
Heading back, pushing against the wind which feels prickly on my skin,
And the rhythmic “squeak, squeak, squeak” of my boots going up the driveway.
In honor of our winter storm, I want to share this delightful poem by Mary Oliver that I read the other day.
The Storm
Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters.
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.
Oh, I could not have said it better myself.
Indeed!
I’ll probably delete this in the morning.
Lynniebeemuseoday 