On Pivoting

 So yesterday I hit a wall I wasn't expecting. 

Well, when does anyone ever expect to hit a wall? And maybe that's a little overly dramatic: hitting a wall. More accurately, I came up against a physical capacity limitation that I was unaware existed. 

My plan was simple enough. We had caught some of the Mega Winter Storm that rolled from Texas to New England this week, enough to shut our streets down, close the library (which almost never happens), close many county and city offices, and generally bring Delaware to a standstill both Thursday and Friday. So I thought as a snowy gesture of friendship, I would make fruit empanadas and share them with our neighbors Adam and Maura and girls next door, Kathy and Ryan across the street (Ryan brings his snowblower over and blows off our sidewalk when it snows), and my old law partner Scott two houses down (who recently gave my dad some legal advice). 

It had been a long time, years to be honest, since I had made fruit empanadas, but heck, piece of cake. I mean, I bake all the time, right? So I prepared an apple filling and a cherry filling. (With fruit empanadas, it's better to cook the filling before filling and baking the empanadas, as the baking time goes more smoothly.)

The fillings

The kitchen smelled great. I was ready to roll, literally and figuratively. 

I made the pie dough I've now made for some 40 years, rolled out a bit of it, cut out the first six dough circles, and moved them onto the parchment paper to fill and crimp shut. I had put filling on three of the six when it hit me. I didn't have the strength to do the rolling, the cutting, the filling, the crimping, the baking. Not now, not later that morning, not ever. 

I was at a complete halt. I wasn't having a bad day physically; my cancer was not acting out. 

I. Just. Couldn't. Do. It.

Long silence in my heart. Long silence in my brain. Long silence in the kitchen as I looked down at what I had begun and acknowledged I could not finish it.

Deep breath.

Okay, no more fruit empanadas. That was clear. But I had filling for pies: apple pies, cherry pies. Not the same and not as much, but pies all the same. Pies! Soon I had two small apple and two medium cherry pies in the oven.

While they baked and I cleaned up the kitchen, I thought about what had happened. In my baking world, this was a first. I don't see it changing and my miraculously regaining the strength and energy to make the empanadas. No more empanadas. 

All the same, I gave myself props for pivoting without too much angst. Because, really, what was the alternative? Collapse in a tearful heap? Swear vociferously, slam my apron against the table, and stalk away? I felt I did more than just salvage the situation: the pies were great. (I'm not just bragging: this was confirmed when wonderful texts came in from those on the receiving end. Plus we kept and cut into one of the small apple pies. Yum.)

But I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a pang. Not heartbreak, but a pang. 

In writing my first draft of this post last night, I looked back to find my empanada post, as I was sure I had done one. Indeed, there it was in June 2012. What caught my eye was not the post itself (although those empanadas look pretty darn tasty), but this quote from my son Sam: "I've also been cooking huge meals for my housemates which is incredibly enjoyable; preparing and cooking and sharing food with people is one of the finer points in life for me as of late."

Preparing and cooking and sharing food. It really is that simple and essential.

So no more empanadas. But there's still food to to prepare and cook and share. The baking goes on. The friendships go on.

Life, sweet life, goes on. 

October Money Review

As we start to wind down the year, I took a long hard look at my food dollars and did some calculating. Based on what we spent in October (keep reading), if we spent $175.00 and no more in the months of November and December, we would finish the year averaging $180.33 a month for all of 2019. That would be just above our goal of $175.00 a month for the year. We would have to spend no more than $140.00 in both November and December to bring the yearly average to $175.00. I'm not sure we will hit that mark.

As I look ahead to next year, one thing I am going to start calculating into our overall food costs is our eating out costs. I have been tracking those dollars for a few years, but do not count them in the $175.00 a month goal. The bulk of our eating out dollars directly relates to travel, especially Mayo and conferences, and performances, especially those in Mansfield when dress rehearsal falls in the afternoon, followed by a mid-evening concert. Yeah, some of our eating out dollars are just us taking the easy way out, and I still very occasionally have tea with a friend, but the bulk of the expenses are related to not being home. I will have to take a long, hard look at what we spent this year (and how much was strictly pleasure versus the travel/concert issue) and come up with some realistic targets for 2020. Just saying.

So what did October look like? In groceries (food), we spent $179.78, which, I am thrilled to say, included the reception we hosted after opening the Symphony's 41st Season. Back in April, I had budgeted $75.00 for the end-of-season reception and wildly overshot that amount, spending double those dollars. For this reception, based not in small part of on my notes of what worked and what didn't back in April, I spent a grand total of $67.38 for a wonderful reception (with a lot of leftovers)! So that revamping of our reception spending made a significant contribution to our overall monthly bottom line.

As for household items, our October expenses were a modest $5.18. Total spent in October? $184.96, $10.00 over the $175.00 goal. Monthly average for the year? $182.06.

As for eating out, our costs were not outrageous, but scaled up towards the end of the month because I had a conference in downtown Pittsburgh and the expenses were higher. (Most of the eating out expenses from Pittsburgh will hit in November and I will be reimbursed for much of my food costs, but it was still expensive.) Our eating out costs in October were $117.41, counting tips. That's pretty high for us.

One of those eating out occasions was due to my not standing firm on not eating out in a training session. Along with some close coworkers, I attended a lengthy training session through our local school district, with the training located in our downtown. As I always do with local training, I frugally packed my lunch. I had it with me. When the lunch break came, everyone started making plans to walk to different places downtown and done together. Everyone. I said "I brought a lunch." I got pushback. Then I said "Lunch is my most difficult meal to eat out because of where I'm at in my health" (a true statement). I got pushback. Loving, friendly, come-join-us pushback, but pushback all the same.

And I folded. I walked to lunch, I ended up sitting with some attendees I did not know well or at all but got to know a little (a positive), I ate very frugally ($6.00 with the tip), I took the planned walk to the library immediately afterwards so I could drop off the library book I had brought with me (a chore accomplished), and I ate the packed lunch the next day (so no waste). Was I better for joining the others? Perhaps. Certainly in the sense of getting to know attendees (all school employees) and sharing stories. That's always a plus. But I am nonetheless embarrassed that I let the peer pressure get to me. I'm 631/2 years old. I should be over this.

So that was October. As I noted in my last review, we did indeed miss Halloween. It snowed lightly in Delaware that night. (It probably snowed in Pittsburgh too, but I was inside.) According to a friend down the street, Halloween foot traffic was light as a result. So yes, I missed Halloween but I also missed sitting outside on a bitter night.

Since I missed Halloween here, I took great pleasure when pictures from the west rolled in:

All three of them, Ramona being the dinosaur posing! 

And in true Halloween fashion, the youngest of the trio didn't even last past the third house:

November is swirling all around us. We just ate the last of the lettuce (which I moved inside before going to Pittsburgh, knowing it would be getting cold while we were gone). And I will eat the very last 2019 tomato tonight. The. Very. Last. Tomato. We are joining Thanksgiving, not hosting it; I already have dibs on the turkey carcass. So we'll see where the dollars fall when we come out the other side.

Inch Ninety-Nine: New Year

I have not yet grown used to the idea that it is a new year. Oh, I am getting the date right on checks and letters, but another year? Already?

The first nine days of January have been a hodgepodge. Some days off, some truancy mediations (already), some sunny cold days, some warmer but rainy days. We continue to have no snow. This morning, Warren and I took a walk in weather more like mid-April than early January. Portland got some snow and ice at the beginning of the week; the video of Ramona playing in it showed more snow clinging to her mitten than we have had all season.

Our tree—the one that dropped needles before it was even in its stand—is still with us. The press of time on Warren and my personal lack of energy have guaranteed that the holidays will linger yet a bit longer in this house.

To say I have been reading a lot these last several days would be an understatement. I just finished rereading The Lord of the Rings, not for the first time. Before that, I inhaled Roger Angell's This Old Man, a collection of his short pieces, most of which appeared in The New Yorker, a magazine which he and his mother and stepfather before him have been associated with almost since its inception. Angell's stepfather was E.B. White and by some magical, non-biological process, he inherited a goodly portion of White's writing skill. Angell's mother, Katherine S. White, was a formidable editor and no slouch at writing herself, but she was not E.B. White. She may have taught her son a sense of structure, but the effortless sentences that Angell turns out could have come straight from White's pen. As my good friend Margo noted, reading Angell is so easy, "like floating."

During my chemo sessions, which are twice a week, I am reading for the first time War and Peace. It's a lengthy tome, but there are lots of chemo sessions in the future. While sitting in the waiting room waiting for chemo, I read an essay in a cancer magazine on the nearest table. The essayist talked about her changed priorities since receiving her diagnosis. She no longer spent time on things that did not interest her, such as "boring" books that "were supposed to be good" for her. On the strength of that conviction, she chucked War and Peace.

War and Peace boring? Boring? Lengthy, yes. Freighted with complicated names and lineages and story lines, absolutely. But boring? Never. I put down the essay in disgust.

For my home reading, I am rereading Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. In the dark of winter, in the start of the new year, it is good to read and dream of road trips down the blue highways of our own choosing.

Inch Thirty-Eight: Dust of Snow

We had our first major snow of the season last night, a storm that dumped four or so inches on us. Early this afternoon, the snow tapered off, the skies cleared, and the sun beamed. I had a meeting downtown at 2:00, so I bundled up and starting walking, figuring it to be a nice day.

What I had not counted on was the wind picking up, shaking snow from the trees onto cars, sidewalks, and me. There was no way to dodge the blown snow, which ranged from a sprinkle to large clumps. I kept brushing it off, trying not to slow my stride, hoping nothing larger than a small handful fell my way.

The last gust was particularly zestful, and I found myself enveloped in a brief whirl of snow, just enough to dust me thoroughly. I found myself thinking of Robert Frost and his poem "Dust of Snow."

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

As it so happened, there was a crow in a nearby pine (maybe a hemlock), cawing at me or the wind or the snow or all three of us.

Robert Frost, who took his own pleasure in cold and dark and snow, is good and out of fashion in many circles these days. In fact, poetry as a subject is pretty much out of fashion in our schools and modern curricula. Small wonder that seven years ago, when teenagers vandalized Frost's house in New Hampshire, they had no idea who Frost was, let alone the significance of his contribution to American literature.

By the time I finished my meeting, the day had gone gray again and the temperature had dropped several degrees. My walk home was brisk; I pushed myself to reach the warmth of the house as soon as possible. The crow had gone silent; perhaps it had taken shelter deeper in the tree, huddling against the cold.

I thought about my walk once I was back inside. I had no day to rue. Just a dust of snow and a crow cawing vociferously and a long-dead poet who accompanied me downtown and back.

The Week That Was

This has been a busy, busy week. I am so glad it is Friday.

I have already written about my United Way week. But United Way was not the only thing that happened this week.

This week I filled, seeded, and watered 66 pots. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, some ornamental gourds (seeds from another, so they may be crossbred) because Warren wants to experiment with gourd instruments some more. After doing that Sunday I was tired, tired, tired.

While I was in United Way meetings all day Tuesday, Warren and the Symphony were launching the big event of the year: the Symphony participating in the Ford Made in America program. The kickoff event was a luncheon of community leaders to introduce the program, explain the related community events, centered around a four day residency with composer Joseph Schwantner, and seek community imput.

And at home in the evenings, Warren was building a vibraphone. Except for Tuesday night, when we went to hear Liz's band concert.

When I wasn't at United Way this week, I was in court meetings. I am the lead writer of a grant due April 8 and those days are ticking fast.

When I wasn't at United Way or in court meetings this week, I was on the road. Sam started work on Monday and I am driving him to and from the job each day. That has required us to set the alarms earlier and run the days a little later.

Today is the first day all week that, after driving Sam to work, I have not had to turn around and prepare for a meeting outside of the home. Maybe I can catch up on a lot of laundry, paperwork, writing.

As I said, this has been a busy week full of hard work, accomplishments, proud moments, news from Montana (there's a wedding in the works!), and Sam's new job. Whew.

Mother Nature apparently felt left out of the whirl, so she added her piece to the week as well. This morning, the last Friday in March, we all woke up to this sight outdoors:

And this one indoors:

The broccoli is up! Now that's the way to end a busy, busy week!

The Winter Games

The Winter Olympics are going on right now. Lots of people follow them avidly. Over at Dave and Ashley's, they have an Olympic flag up in their backyard. My neighbor Scott flew one the day of the opening ceremonies. The teens in the house across the street and their buddies have rigged up an ice-slicked incline on which I think they are perfecting their techniques for the 2 Meter Snowboard Run. Even we of the House of No Television have had the set on for more hours since last Friday than in the last four years.

Along with the Olympics, we are having record snowfalls this month. As I type in the late afternoon, the sky has darkened again and the flakes are whirling down. I don't know how much is out there: not as much as Virginia got earlier in February, but more than enough for me. Maybe a foot and a half? Maybe more? It was enough that we canceled tonight's monthly Legal Clinic for the first time ever.

As I shoveled again this morning, clearing away the packed snow that the City threw into our driveway when it came through with a plow sometime during the night, I couldn't help but think that weightlifting belonged to the Summer Olympics.

All this snow, combined with the presence of Bob Costas every night, has lead me to reflect on the Winter Games of my childhood. No, not Peggy Fleming in Grenoble, but the sports events of our own contrivance that were the hallmark of the season.

Biathlon
A biathlon is a sporting event made up of two disciplines. The Flax Street biathlon brought together downhill sledding with target shooting. This was a team event. Both sides had a limited amount of time in which to make up a supply of snowballs. One team got the snow fort at the foot of the hill in the backyard; the other team got the sled. The Sled Team's objective was to launch the sled (with a solo driver) from the top of the hill and ride towards the snow fort, launching snowballs when within range. Other Sled Team members followed on foot, screaming at the top of their lungs while they too fired snowballs. Team Snow Fort had to repel the attack without leaving the walls of the fort. If the Sled Team breached the walls (with either bodies or sled), it won. Otherwise, decision for Team Snow Fort.

Downhill Combined
This was performed at an out of town venue, my grandparent's farm out on Hogback Road. There was a pasture out behind the barn that tailed off sharply towards a small creek (pronounced "crick" for those foreign competitors who didn't understand the local dialect). In one location, the creek was only a foot and a half wide, very shallow, and would freeze solid, allowing the sled and its occupant to sail over the water and glide to a halt on the relatively smooth and flat bank on the other side. The course was marked by random objects - a discarded implement, a large rock, some scrap lumber - that were often hidden under the snow and that a competitor had to be sure to steer around while traversing the course. If one were lucky enough to avoid injury upon collision with a random object and kept hurtling downwards, one always ran the risk of being off course. This resulted in either (a) breaking through the ice of the creek at a slightly deeper spot and getting wet or (b) crossing the creek at a bank that was undercut and so sat several feet higher than the other side, thus causing the sled and its driver to become temporarily airborne. Points were given for "hang time" in the event of the latter.

Combined Skating
This event was performed at the Olentangy River Arena, which was a block away from our house and right in the backyard of my older cousins. Our parents would allow us to skate on the river when it froze hard enough. "Hard enough" was always determined by an older cousin - late teens - testing the ice depth by chopping a hole in the ice. If he ascertained it to be safe, anyone old enough to skate ran to the river. Our skates were usually hung around our necks by their knotted laces, flailing our chests as we piled down the hill to the river. Once on the ice, we all (my brothers, a couple of older cousins (also male), myself, whatever friends we had joining us) practiced our compulsory figures ("Look, I'm skating backwards!") until one of the cousins would come flying by in speed skating mode, grab an outstretched arm, and "crack the whip" to send the hapless skater sailing out of control across the ice. The other event was a group event, consisting of all the skaters skating in fast, tight formation downriver and under the Central Avenue bridge, daring one another to skate as close as possible to the low head dam further downriver. At the last possible moment, the older skaters in the group would wheel around sharply, screaming "the ice is breaking!," and skate back upstream as swiftly as possible, leaving the younger skaters in panicked disarray.

Team Toboggan
My cousins had a toboggan, which was a fairly exotic sled for our neighborhood in those days. Their house was on the side of a moderate hill; the street turned sharply left, while the hill continued into a small field. The toboggan was built to hold three, but if one were willing to be squashed, as many as four or five riders could fit on it. This event had a bobsled quality to it as the last person on the sled would push off (from a run) and then jump aboard for the ride down. This was probably the tamest event of our Winter Games. A side event was putting the youngest kid in the front spot, making sure there was an extra forceful push to maximize speed, and then every other rider bailing out on the way down so that the remaining rider was left in an empty sled careening down the hill while the older kids laughed uproariously.

Icicle Duels
The competitors broke off a selection of large icicles from low hanging eaves, choosing them for length and girth. They then faced each other at arms' length and commenced to duel with the icicles until one icicle was too shattered to continue. Obviously, this was an event in which the height of the competitor made an enormous difference in the outcome. The taller one was, the easier one could reach (and manage to break off cleanly) more icicles. I regularly lost this event to my older brother Dale and cousin John growing up, but even in my early years of competition routinely captured the bronze by besting my younger brother Michel.

***********

My friend Patricia and I managed to get a morning walk in on Monday, despite the snow and the unshoveled sidewalks. As we walked, she commented on some of the enormous icicles hanging from the gutters of the houses. Patricia was speculating about the damage to the gutters and potential damage to the house. I was listening, but I was thinking not of gutters but of the past glories of the Winter Games.

Gifts

We had a big snow here. "Big" meaning several inches of white powder falling over the last 24 hours, starting yesterday morning. As I was leaving the courthouse late yesterday afternoon, after first looking out the window at my snow blanketed car, a colleague walking by commented that he bet I was going to go home and write, predicting I would take photos and then post something about the snow.

I'm not going to photograph or write about the snow. Lots of writers write about snow better than I do. My last several notes on Facebook have all been about snow, starting with "Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast…" (Robert Frost). John Keats captured frigid cold better than anyone: "St. Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!"

Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven…

Sylvia Plath, writing about what turned out to be her final winter in London, described the downside of the season:

It was an unspeakable winter, the worst, they said, in one hundred and fifty years. The snow began just after Christmas and would not let up. The trains froze on the tracks…Water pipes froze solid…The gas failed…The lights failed and candles, of course, were unobtainable. Nerves failed…Finally, the heart itself failed. It seemed the cold would never end. Nag, nag, nag.

And Dylan Thomas was lyrical in "A Child's Christmas in Wales:"

Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely-ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards.

That's enough snow talk for now.

Gifts, not snow, are on my mind. We have just left the holidays and gift giving behind. Warren and I agreed that we didn't want to go overboard for the holidays and I am pleased to say we didn't. I got the two Christmas presents I most desired: new oven mitts and two 8" cake pans (found nowhere but the dollar store). My old mitts were worn out and needed to be pitched. My cake pans were 9" and many cake recipes call for the smaller pan size. If I use the larger pan, the cakes taste fine but look rather puny. (Apparently we supersized our boxed cake mixes somewhere along the way; I only noticed this volume discrepancy when I stopped using box mixes.)

But I'm not writing about the cake pans or the oven mitts, thrilled as I was to receive them. I'm writing about gifts that leave me so rich that I rival Croesus.

These are but a handful of them:

• My friends in Blogville, who I hear from and who hear from me throughout the week. You are a big part of my community. Ellen, Sharon, Christine, Jennifer (both of you), Sarah, Working Poor, everyone else! Thank you for being an unexpected and totally welcome gift this year. You have supported me, encouraged me, and laughed with me. I hope I have done the same for you. How I look forward to seeing what is going on in your part of the world and letting you in on mine!
• My friends here with whom I share coffee and books and laughter and hugs and stories and community. I'm not even going to try to name names. You know who you are (those of you who read this blog). I couldn't do it - whatever "it" encompasses - without you. (And that includes those of you who don't live here, but are part of my life - by letter, by email, by phone - all the same.)
  
• The wonderful note accompanying the hi-bounce ball with the floating confetti from Becky, who volunteers for the Symphony and who reads this blog. What a thoughtful note! The ball sits on my desk now and I shake it from time to time the same way one would shake a snow globe.
• Sam, for saying on Christmas Day as we cooked side by side, "why don't we try that together?" when we talked about wanting to make cheese.
• Bethany, for reappearing and reaching out after many long years. There is a long story here, and it may get told later, but the short version is six days before Christmas, she commented on my blog. We are meeting up in New York at the end of this month and just writing that sentence brings tears to my eyes.
• My haircut last Monday. Well, not the haircut per se but how it came to be. Margo was just arriving at the shop for hers when I called to make an appointment. Later that day, when Janine finished and I got out my wallet to pay, she said "it's all taken care of." Thinking "well, of course, it's all taken care of, you just finished," I said "I know." Janine gave me a funny look and asked me how I found out. I returned the strange look and asked "find out what? What do I owe you?" At which point Janine repeated, speaking slowly because of my clearly impaired intelligence, "your. haircut. is. all. taken. care. of." I started to ask "by who?" then exclaimed "Margo did it, didn't she?!" And indeed she did! Margo, you are a gift in my life for lots of reasons, including reminding me that great gifts, like great books, often show up where and when you least expect them!
• Any day, hour, minute spent with Warren anywhere, anytime. (Happy 2010, dear!)

This weekend Warren and I are taking down the lights, packing away the ornaments, and boxing up Christmas for another year. Our tree is so desiccated that all of its needles will be on the carpet before it ever reaches the front door, let alone the curb. Some of the presents are still under it - the cake pans among them - and will migrate to their new homes. I'm already using the mitts.

The gifts above? The friendship, the community, the love?

They are already lodged in my heart.

Looking Backwards and Forward

We are down to the dregs of 2009 and I am in that contemplative state that befalls many of us this time of year. I find myself sifting through the last twelve months - What did I accomplish? What took place? - as well as contemplating the next twelve - What will I accomplish? What will happen?

It is appropriate that the first month of our calendar is named after the Roman god Janus. Janus was always represented as having two faces looking in opposite directions. To the Romans, he was the god of gates and doors, doorways, beginnings and endings, and transitions. To me, he is a reminder of the bittersweet nature of my thoughts at this time of year.

2009 brought much good to my life. It was the year of my great garden adventures, of both of my sons making some sweeping lifestyle changes (I believe for the better), of greatly satisfying accomplishments both professionally and as a volunteer, of a rich and full life with Warren, of one amazing Symphony season ended (the 30th) and another one begun that will reach fruition in 2010 (the 31st). It has been an incredible year full of warmth and support and love and friendship and joy, so much so that I would stitch its memories into a quilt if they had tangible form.

And yet…

And yet I have to temper my assessment of 2009 with the reality of the Great Recession and its impact on family, friends, and community. Holiday cards arrived bearing news of difficult times. Both of my sons are looking for work, having spent much of 2009 unemployed. We saw 168 clients at our community's free Legal Clinic this year, a 83% increase over 2008. Our local United Way last spring had fewer dollars for more needs as job losses took away from the former and increased the latter. (As I write those words, I am already gearing up for the allocation discussions to come this spring.)

So many of us - institutions and individuals alike - did more and more with less and less in 2009.

I expect 2010 to follow suit. I believe the Great Recession will hang on longer at the grassroots level than the pundits and politicians realize or admit. It will change us as a people, as a community, and as individuals, just like the Great Depression did 80 years ago.

And yet…

And yet I am not soured on this year now ending or the one to come. Scrooge sneeringly denounced the Christmas season as "a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer." I am no Pollyanna - these times are hard and many of us are not only not an hour richer, but many hours poorer to boot - but I am no Scrooge either. I see the year now ending as one which gave me many gifts and responsibilities in these hard times; I see the year about to begin as being endless in opportunities.

I am not one to make New Year's resolutions. If I could not make life changes during the course of the year, why should I think there is any magic to making one now? So I will make no pronouncements here or anywhere as to how much weight I hope to lose or how much I intend to exercise or how many blog posts I hope to write in the year to come.

Instead, I have a sense in my heart of which projects will rise to the top of my list for 2010 and of what I plan on planting in my gardens - literal and figurative - in the months to come. Some of them will undoubtedly make their way to this blog. Time will tell.

Two centuries ago, the sage Hillel said "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself only, then what am I? And if not now, when?" Decades ago, I posted that saying on my wall above my desk. I have had it committed to memory for almost as long. I take it out now and hold it up against this time of year, against endings and beginnings, against old and new.

It has served me well all this time. It will guide me again in the year to come.

As I finish these words, it is early Sunday evening. A thick snow, the thickest yet of this winter, is silently scrolling down out of the dark, blanketing the lawn, kissing the outdoor holiday lights. By morning, our neighborhood will be a white slate upon which to write the day.

2010 - a long, clean slate upon which to write the year - is waiting.

First Snow!

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley

When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I'll know I'm growing old.

Lady Bird Johnson

We woke to our first snow this morning. Not a lot and it is late in coming this year, yet it is still magical and I am still thrilled to see it.