Wash your car

Winter is a natural disaster in the city

I suppose when spring comes I'll miss all the warm nights huddled around tables; there won't be nobody to plunk on a piano or guitar to lure people away from their conversations as they focus on a separate harmony, or a doubling up on the melody. I'll miss nice girls hosting with eats and unceasing warm wine. I'll long for reading F.Scott Fitzgerald to each other and staring out the window side by side, wistfully, at what could be, and what is going on: construction, an ambulance, nothing at all...

Gone will be my winter nights of cutting through the park, homeward, crosswise, and upon reaching the middle, being brave enough to throw my hood back and soak in the stark landscape as it romances me with fresh snow.

My peripheral vision is a luxury in the cold dead of the season. A small window surrounded by coyote fur is usually all I can afford. Sometimes the wind is so icy and burns my skin so that I hate it, I hate it, but I stand straight, I don't care and I think, God, I love it.

Who's with me?

Mornings in my house

Mornings have a special kind of stillness that evenings do not.

I like looking at the dog-walkers in the park out of my living room sliding doors while I drink coffee and absorb some magnified winter sun. In the morning, I check the plant known as Yvonne the wandering Jew; I didn't give her either of those names and one of them is practically scientific. She is tough and can make it no matter what.

I've penned some good songs in the morning too and in the summer I can play on my balcony again while I wait for my ride and best friend to take me to work. Work is materials like mahogany, brass, felt, steel, maple, leather, shellac, hide glue, etc...

I like sitting on this rug. It was swallowed by a flood two Christmases ago and was rescued by my father. He paid to have it cleaned and kept it until a year later I asked if I could have it and I got it. I like this rug the way children grow older and hold onto things like blankets and plush animals. It reminds me of my good life, it protects me.

It's still winter, still.

small things

Winter retreating

This very weekend I spent in a house called Ruth with about 2 dozen different people.
We studied a passage from Malachi, but the thing I will remember most is when just 3 of us read a John Steinbeck short story to one another called "the flight". The thing I will also remember is drinking copious amounts of tea by firelight, and at one point, there was an outdoor fire and we stood around shin-deep in heavy snow warming our hands.

On the last day, I took a short walk in the woods alone.