(May Sarton’s Plant Dreaming Deep is perhaps my favorite, but there are others, too, memoirs by Louise Dickinson Rich, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Florida Scott Maxwell, Gladys Taber, and Madeleine L’Engle.) These graceful, unaffected writers feel like soul friends to me, kindred spirits who are still alive on the page, their own ordinary days eternally vivid and fresh simply because they took the time to notice, to watch, to reflect, and to write things down. I have a special place my heart for such chronicles of daily life as it was once lived by women who have long since left this earth. But in the silent expansiveness of these winter mornings, as I set a tone for my day, I’m drawn not to the latest literary releases on my shelf or to the novel half-read on my iPad, but to a modest, gently worn, long out-of-print memoir called The Shape of a Year by Jean Hersey. I have a stack of new books waiting on the bedside table and I’m nearly done with Anne Lamott’s wise and funny essay collection, Small Victories.
And yet, being quiet in both body and soul can be a challenge – especially given the countless distractions, obligations, needs, and desires that tug at the coat sleeves of my attention each day.Īnd so, I’ve been giving myself this small gift of time, a few minutes of uninterrupted reading before the work of the day begins. More and more these days, I want to close my computer, silence my phone, and steep in the silence. I’ll skip the long walk today.īack inside my cozy kitchen, second cup of coffee in hand, I pick up my book. But my fingers are already numb with cold. I stand there quietly for a moment, close as I dare, to watch them take turns plucking seeds from between the wires. A pair of chickadees arrives before I’m even back to the door, the two of them too hungry to be shy. I slip on Steve’s tall black boots to trudge out and fill the birdfeeder, scattering some extra nibbles along the top of the snow-covered stonewall - a sunflower seed buffet for the squirrels and the jays. Looking up from my stool in the kitchen, I spot the empty bird feeder swinging in the wind and a sturdy cardinal, all puffed up and hunkered down in a nearby snowdrift, bright as a jewel against the blanket of white, patiently waiting for his breakfast. But I’m seeing this latest storm as a muffled blessing, an invitation to stay put today-no place to go and nothing to do, at least until the roads are cleared. With the temperature dropping steadily and the snow already hip deep, it would be easy to view yet another four or six or sixteen inches of snow as an annoying inconvenience. This morning, it’s pretty wild outside - a bitter, relentless wind drives vast, swirling curtains of powder across the meadow and sends silent clumps of snow crashing from tree limbs. I choose to acquiesce to this season of storms, keeping more food in the refrigerator, making pots of soup and chili that last for days, shopping less, driving less, snowshoeing more, writing more, reading more, gazing out the window more. We can fight the weather (not much of a contest there!), or we can embrace the challenge of an uncompromising northern winter, layering on fleeces and wool socks, planning ahead, slowing down. In New England, and certainly here in our part of New Hampshire, it’s a season of enforced respite from the comings and goings of our busy everyday lives. It’s snowing again, for the third time in a week.
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