winter mix

The December rush. Taxing, but so very pleasant.. Hurrying forward, you find yourself humming. Lots to do! Isn’t life delightful?

There is the matter of the tree. We need to move along and get one, but no one has time for it. Finally, early this morning we do a quick run to a tree place just at the edge of town.

Before classes, before anything at all, we are out picking out the Christmas tree.





And then we zip across the street to the bakery.  I try not to want anything. Even as I want it all. But if I am tempted, can you imagine the draw this place may have for the wee little ones?










Classes, office hours – the day continues in the usual way. I take a break in mid afternoon for coffee and to pick up CSA spinach (in the basement of the engineering building, of all things). I think – this is like the Poland I once knew, where you go out of your way to pick up a food item that’s not easy to find. Lemons, for instance, in the Poland of my childhood. Toilet paper. Bananas. And now, here in Madison – fresh, curly, flavorful spinach, grown locally, in the dead of winter.


Evening. An end of semester get together for law school faculty and staff. A chance to see the lovely offspring of your colleagues. Babies born since last year, children acting like children, only with one extra year's worth of spunk. I watch parents quiet the tired ones and I think – wow, it’s been a while since I’ve had to do that. Indeed, my older daughter is one of my colleagues. She mixes with her friends and I realize that she is closer in age to most of them than I am.

Time ushering in change. Yesterday the rain made the streets shine. Today, it is well below freezing and there are little mounds of snow in the gutters. It’s early evening for the younger colleagues and late evening for me. I take my pack, my papers, my spinach and catch the next bus home.