frosted over

Several yoga classes back, toward the end of the hour, the yoga instructor came over to where I was doing the final savasana -- a relaxation pose that is aptly referred to sometimes as the corpse pose -- and she gently massaged my forehead. I thought then that she was giving me a bonus kick. Because I had told her earlier that I really liked her sequences. But a funny thing happened after she soften my forehead -- I noticed that my whole face was less taught. For all these years, I believed that I had etched on my forehead a frown born of determination. You know, the immigrant, determined to make a go of it here. She saw in it tension and she coaxed me into letting that fold away, along with everything else that in fact does fold away during a savasana.


On Mondays, my work tensions mount. Not that I even notice or pay much attention to this. It happens, I move forward. But this morning, it causes me to hesitate: maybe I shouldn't go to the Obama/Springsteen rally early, so early, 7 a.m early? I don't usually go to rallies, but it had been a long election period and I had thought maybe I should show this small amount of support for the candidate of my choice.

But, at the last minute, I change my mind. I look out, note the frost, think about all that I could accomplish if I did not devote three hours to displaying support. (For one, I could get a wonderful fifteen more minutes of sleep.) And so I scratch the idea of going to the rally.

Feeling bad that I had just given in to a weakness, I push myself to get up and take an exhilarating Rosie ride in the post dawn hours when the frost is still thick and the temperatures hover around 23 (and that's while standing still).

Frost can be so very pretty in the faint light of a winter sun (in Wisconsin, it feels like we're done with fall).





Our neighbor across the road grows trees -- Christmas trees. Frost tinted this morning.






In the fields -- the rough brown color is gone. We have before us the work of the frost elves.






And so I do my Rosie morning loop, no more than five or six miles, stopping now and then to smile at the enormous beauty of the landscape, at once without the dazzle of color, but as if brush stroked to a softness that is gentle and kind.





It takes a while for me to warm up after that, but, the sun comes and goes all day long and I follow it from room to room when it is there and eventually, I forget that it is cold outside.

And I do go back to yoga today, and even though it's Monday and the instructor is rather tough on the whole lot of us. That frosty ride set me, I think, in a good direction for a quiet and productive day.

Even if I do have to let out a sigh when I note how quickly the sun sets these days.