It’s dark through the window. The sun is still an hour from rising. As I sip my coffee and look out, in the barely there glow of pre-dawn light I see white powder piling on the stair rail. We’re expecting maybe 7 inches of snow before it turns to sleet then freezing rain tonight.
I’m excited for it. I’ve got my comfies on: sweatshirt, sweatpants, wool socks. Our cat Tubbles is purring against my chest as I type. On the kitchen counter, I’ve got chickpea flour soaking for a flatbread I’ll bake tonight in a cast iron skillet. The bread will accompany a toasted grain soup with mushrooms and kale that I’ve been wanting to try for a while.
I brought in extra wood and laid a fire in the fireplace last night so that all we have to do tonight is light it. We’re cozy and warm. We’ve got cats and blankets and the makings for warm, comforting food. We’re ready for snowfall.
I was optimistic yesterday. The high temperature was to be 53℉ (12℃). After weeks of arctic cold and the accompanying heavy clothes that go with it, I was excited to wear something besides pants. I swam, took a steaming shower, and decided to mix things up with my clothes for the day. I dressed not in jeans or corduroys or wide-legged cargo pants, but in a skirt and fleece-lined tights.
I made it to mid-morning before I changed. Even with a blanket on my lap, and even working from my son’s desk upstairs instead of my cold basement office, I could not stay warm. I was chilled enough that I knew that changing from a skirt to pants alone wouldn’t do it; I needed two layers.
I went down to the laundry room, also in the cold basement, and rooted around in my basket of clean clothes for the thermal underwear I’d washed and dried over the weekend. I considered throwing the bottoms in the drier to warm them up but didn’t want to have to wait. When I brought them upstairs to change, though, they were icy in my hand. I shivered to think of pulling them on cold. I thought maybe I’d sit on them while I worked to warm them up before I put them on. Then I saw a bright patch of sunlight beaming down on our bedroom carpet.
The front of our house faces south, and sometimes during the work day, I’ll take a break to go stand in the sun that pours through the windows. I’ll put my hands up to warm them, and I’ll just stand there and enjoy the heat that radiates through the glass.
When I saw the patch of sunlight on the floor — the sunbeam the cats frequently lie in to warm themselves — I knew what to do with my long johns. I lay them in the rectangle of light framed by the window, then worked at my laptop in our son’s room to give them time to soak up the sun’s heat.
After about 10 minutes, I went back to check on them. Our cat Tubbles was curled up on them in the sunlight. Double heat! I pressed my palm against the kitty-free leg, and the waffly fabric was as toasty as if I’d just taken it out of the drier.
I shooed Tubbles away so I could change into my sun- (and cat-) warmed underlayer. As soon as I slipped my first foot in and felt the cozy heat of the thermal against my ankle, I knew I’d made a good choice. What a luxury to warm clothes up before putting them on!
Our back deck is now a neighborhood hangout for birds. With winter here, and the bears sleeping, I set up a new feeding station on our back deck. Within 24 hours of hanging a fly-through feeder filled with black oil sunflower seeds, I sat on the other side of our sliding glass door and watched birds alight on the feeder, or the rail, or the wooden planks beneath.
First the cardinals came. A dusky brown female with a flame orange beak inspected the new feeder from the deck rail it’s attached to. She cocked her head left and right, then hopped onto the wire mesh and dipped her head to pull out a seed. Then another. And another.
Next came a black-capped chickadee, small and round as a smoke grey tennis ball, with a smart black cap and a tiny triangle beak. It watched the mama cardinal from the rail before it hopped onto the feeder as well.
Then a male cardinal arrived and strutted scarlet along the white rail. Then another arrived. A few more males and females lined up on the rail. Their crests pointed to the sky, the black patches on their faces like little masks. They watched from the limbs of the oak that are just a few feet away from our deck. They dipped down to the feeder then flitted back up to the safety of their branches, streaks of bright red, pops of flame orange.
A tufted titmouse arrived, smaller than the cardinals, but longer and leaner than the chickadee. It had a jaunty little grey crest and a secret blush of orange under its wings.
Next came the mourning doves, crash landing onto the floor of the deck, four times the size of the cardinals, and with as much grace as my favorite, goofy pelicans who land in dramatic splashes on the surface of the sea. Once landed, the doves tucked their sprawling wings, bobbed their heads like their pigeon kin, and pecked seeds scattered from the rail above.
I sat at the table for probably an hour watching these funny animals. I don’t know what it is about getting old and watching birds, but it has happened to me, and I will own it. They bring me great joy. I feel peace when I watch them. Calm. The birds are real. They are themselves. They are true and natural. They are striking in their coloring, their body sizes, their beak shapes, and the long history of survival that led to their specific adaptations. I love watching their behavior: how they interact with the feeder, how they position themselves to have cover from prey, how they defer (chickadees) or how they dominate (blue jays, crows), who’s adventurous and will go first (cardinals), who will follow when it seems safe (doves), who will show up when everyone else has left (finches).
Later in the day, after I’d left the table and was no longer thinking about the birds, I saw our cat’s tail swish on our son’s bed as I walked by his open door. I poked my head in to see what Tubbles was flicking her tail about. She crouched on his bed, her front paws on the window sill, riveted to the activity at new feeder, which she could see from his window. I lay down on my stomach next to her and we watched the birds together.
Our Christmas decorations are put away for the year. The only reminder of the holidays are twinkling white lights on the front stair rail and my new Christmas mugs that I’m not yet ready to yield to storage. My fingers fit perfectly in the swoop of their scrolled handles. The mugs are larger than I usually like, but I love the way they feel when I cup my hands around them for warmth: they curve into the exact right shape, and the glazed porcelain is smooth against the skin of my palms. I find myself going for these mugs every time I make coffee or tea; they bring me delight in how cozy they make me feel. I’m not giving them up yet, even though they are painted with Night Before Christmas scenes, with Santa and reindeers, and it is now January 5.
I’ve got a fire laid in the fireplace. We’re expecting a winter storm tonight. Snow should start falling this afternoon, blustery and frigid, before it turns to sleet and ice. We had a load of firewood delivered in early December. I stacked half of it for my exercise the day it came, and Brian stacked the other half. I brought some in the other day to give it some time in the dry heated air of the house. It’s not as seasoned as our previous firewood. We have to start a fire with old wood, then add the new wood once it’s hot. I don’t know what I’ll do when we’re out of old wood; the new wood is hard to get going even when the fire is already hot. I guess we’ll have to use more kindling.
I’m happy about winter, even though the holidays are over. The holidays used to be the only redeeming quality of the season, and once Christmas was done, I was ready for spring. But I’ve come to love the invigorating air and the coziness of being indoors with books and blankets and steaming cups of coffee, of soups and root vegetables, of the quiet of a resting world.
Also, the bears should be hibernating now, and I can give a bird feeder a go again. I’ve been waiting for winter to arrive for this reason. In recent years, bears have discovered the bird feeder hung in our oak tree; the tree is on a slope, and the feeder hung low enough for me to reach it, which means bears could reach it, too. They’ve mauled three feeders, and I gave up last spring after the third.
Bear-mangled bird feeder
This has given me many months to think of a solution. I miss watching the birds. My first and simplest solution was to just wait until winter. Winter is my favorite season for watching birds anyway. There’s nothing else going on outside; all the plants in my garden, all the cute bunnies, chipmunks, and squirrels, all the buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies — they’re all tucked away, out of sight, resting. But the cardinals will come in their brilliant red coats, bright as berries against the bleak greys and whites of winter. Tufted titmice will come, and finches, and black and white woodpeckers with splashes of scarlet on their breasts and crests.
I think I’ve got a longer-term solution now, too, beyond just waiting for winter. I’ll try a bird feeder on the corner of our back porch, which is up a flight of stairs from ground level. I should be able to get a hanger that clamps to the rail. This will put the feeder high enough that bears can’t reach it when they come out of hibernation. And it will be even better than hanging from the tree because it will be closer to where I can see it, and it won’t be obscured by greenery when the oak leafs out in spring. The biggest unknown is this: will a bear climb the stairs to get to it? I guess we will find out.
The bird baths have disks of ice in them, like miniature skating rinks. Birds will find no liquid here to drink or splash in. Glacial gusts bend the grasses and rattle the bare branches of trees.
Cows lay on the sides of hills in their pastures. I saw them when I walked in the cold today. They faced the same direction I walked, with the hill at their backs. I rarely see them lying down; they must have gotten low to the earth to get out of the wind.
The temperature this morning was 23 ℉. That’s pretty chilly. Despite the cold, I needed to get outside and move after all the pies and mashed potatoes and stuffing of Thanksgiving, then egg nog and chocolate torte and beer for our son’s 21st birthday the day after.
I bundled up for my walk. I wore a fleece running shirt, a heavy-weight hoodie, a puffy jacket, long underwear, hiking pants, thick wool socks, gloves, and my headphones. I cinched the hood of my sweatshirt around my baseball capped face and listened to a short story on the first half of my walk. I thought, “It’s not that cold,” as sweat dampened my back. I’d dressed for a wind chill of 17 ℉.
At a bend in the path, at the top of a hill, an arctic gust slammed against the side of my face and blasted behind my glasses. Tears instantly streamed down my face. The air felt like ice shards against my eyeballs. I could feel my nose turn bright red.
I had been cozy because the wind had been at my back. It occurred to me as I pulled my neck warmer over my nose: the cows didn’t just lie down to get low. They positioned themselves intentionally, on on the lee side of the hill, to put high land between them and the cutting wind.
On the return walk home, frosted air blasted me in the face. My cheeks burned with the cold. I pulled my hood off to feel the icy wind blow under my hair and against my scalp. I felt invigorated. I felt alive.
Now I’m back home. After a steaming shower, I’m cozy in my fleece-lined tights and winter favorites: slippers and a thick sweater. A cat is curled in my lap with her chin resting on her paw in the crook of my left elbow. Her girth spreads onto the trackpad on my laptop, highlighting words as I try to type. She purrs against my belly. I am her warm spot, like the cows found on the side of their hill.
I woke after sunrise today for the first time in a week. Through my closed eyes, I sensed the glow of light when I stirred. Usually it is pitch dark when I wake. I saw an abrupt brightening, and when I opened my eyes to see what caused it, I heard the thunk of our cat jumping to the wood floor from the window sill, and I saw the curtain drift shut, and I watched a cat tail swish toward the bed.
I closed my eyes again and lay on my back under our comforter. A moment later, I heard the soft pouf of Tootsie jumping up on the foot of the bed. Through the sheets, blanket, and comforter, I felt the weight of her on my shins, my knees, my thighs, my stomach, as her fuzzy paws walked up my body before she arrived on my chest and lay down. She rubbed her furry face agains my chin and began to purr. I felt her rumble in my chest, and her contentedness seeped into me.
I had planned to get up and brush my teeth, but instead I lay in bed, the morning light shining softly through white curtains, the warm cocoon of our bed, and a purring cat on my heart. I pop out of bed every day, in the dark, as soon as my alarm goes off. Today I stayed put to pet a purring kitty and soak up her goodness.
Butterfly Mind 