Friday

A stunning day! No sunshine. No warmth to it either. Nothing out there for the cats or cheepers to celebrate. But to us -- simply stunning!

We knew it was coming -- a wet snowfall. Not deep, just a few inches of it, but this is enough to transform the farmette landscape.

I am up early, but Ed had already left to pick up the next month's supply of cat food and toilet paper at our big box store. He wants to beat the snow and avoid the store crowds. This is actually a tiny bit amusing, because three years ago we had sort of anticipated that the pandemic, which had shut down China back in February 2020, was going to hit us soon, and so Ed went out to buy... cat food and toilet paper. We have to use a special paper that is good for our septic system and we're always afraid that they wont stock it, so he bought two packs of some 36 rolls. And then the pandemic struck and the toilet paper crisis hit the stores and we felt so guilty! Who knew! 

My morning walk is lovely. 

And it just gets better and better out there.

Breakfast: oatmeal, against a backdrop of snow!

By noon, the snow slows down and the flakes we get are very very soggy. Sadly, it will all probably melt this week, but we don't look ahead to that dreary and drippy moment. We seize our chance and, despite the fact that it's too wet, and not deep enough for skis, and despite the fact that right now I can hardly walk with my stupid busted-up knee, we go out to our local park.

You may be tempted to rate snow falls on a scale of wonderfulness and delight. Don't do it. Stay with the idea that this is one out of the many episodes of beauty nature delivers to us on a regular basis.

We are enchanted.

In the afternoon, I was supposed to pedal my new device and wrap presents. [I finally purchased what all my therapists praised as a good knee exercise for the winter -- an under-the-table bike. Then it stayed in its box for three weeks -- I was too busy to get it out, and Ed was too sick to put it together, and I was too distracted to even read the instructions. But today we did all the above and now I have no excuse not to put in a bunch of bike miles. All under the table or straight from the couch! With book on lap -- what could be easier and funner? Ed says I wont use it and it will be yet another thing we then have to put on Craigslist. I think he is wrong. We will see.] I pedaled for about five minutes and I wrapped nothing. I got the message that Sparrow is home with a fever and so I offered to bring Snowdrop here after school. (She was supposed to spend a pre-holiday afternoon with her mom.

I asked her how I could make it up to her given the sick bro and the change in plans. She suggests a visit to Clasen's before coming to the farmhouse. I'm on it!

In the car today, I listen to a whole string of snow songs on the radio. You can't imagine how many winter themed ditties there are! Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, I've Got my Love to Keep me Warm, Frosty, In the Bleak Midwinter, Baby It's Cold Outside -- all on the radio today and all on my playlist! Oh oh, can you tell what decade I'm from? 

Let me end it with a snowy poem:

Out of the bosom of the air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow,

Descends the snow.

(H.W. Longfellow)

Thursday

I'm up just before sunrise. Quick check on cats, speedy refill of the feeding station for the cheepers. All good.

Then a shout up to Ed: wake up, we need to hit the road!

No time for breakfast. Ed has an appointment. In Janesville. A revisit to his eye surgeon. I quickly dump some coffee in a mug, scoop up a bag of granola for lap munching, and we're off.

It's a pleasant and easy drive, just under an hour, though of course, once there, we have a lot of waiting before us. He needs a corrective procedure so there is, too, the wait afterwards. 

Thank goodness for comfortable and spacious waiting rooms.

Done.

But so long as we're in Janesville, shouldn't we at least taste the city's good stuff? Where's the nearest well regarded coffee shop? Last time I was here for Ed's eye surgery (3 years ago) we were on the eve of the pandemic and I walked around the river's edge, stopping at a place that was modestly okay. And no, I'm not fussy, though places lose me if they still serve coffee in styrofoam cups and if pastries are singularly wrapped in plastic. 

We drive over to a cafe called Havana Coffee. By now I'm starved for decadent anything. A place that reaches to Cuba for its name has to be adventurous and bold, don't you think?

Good sandwich for Ed, okay danish for me.

We are past the noon hour by the time we leave Janesville.

A quick turn around at the farmhouse and I'm off to pick up Snowdrop.

As usual, our best conversations take place during the car ride. I ask her if she had any squabbles with her friend during recess (there had been some disagreement earlier on about the value of being a mermaid every day in their various pretend games: one girl thought no, the other yes). She considers this and then says -- no, not today. Actually I dont really know what the word squabbles means but I'm very good at knowing words that I don't know. 

Yes you are.

I pick up Taigu Noodles for supper. There is not a single noodle in our take out boxes (by choice) but it remains our favorite Chinese food in town. 

The full moon this month came last night. The Cold Moon. But today's lunar display could not be lovelier: orange initially, then brightening on the ascent. May it shine brightly on you as well tonight.

 

Wednesday

I'm up. Ed is already on a Zoom call. I shout down -- have you seen our old hen? He finishes his call and offers to go on a Peach hunt.

And he finds her. In the garage, huddled. We're sure she wasn't there last night. We had canvassed the place up and down, torch lights blazing. Who knows where she weathered the cold dark night, but she kept herself safe, even as we noticed more nocturnal animal activity around the coop.

Ed carries her back to the barn -- she'll stay there now that the opossum is gone, but it's hardly safe for her. She just doesn't move fast enough to escape any predators. Still, what are you going to do -- keep her in the garage? It would not take long for a raccoon to find her there.A sleeping chicken sees no danger. So, back she goes, into a barn corner where she at least stays out of the wintry weather.

The other chickens -- four Bresse girls, Unie the tiny one from a couple of years ago, and Henny -- almost but not quite as old as Peach -- they're active and undeterred by the cold outside. 

We will be vigilant about putting them away early today. 

Breakfast -- back to oatmeal!

Candle burning, tea steeping. My neck PT person reminded me to drink lots of water. I nodded in agreement and boasted that I make myself several cups of herbal tea each day and she said -- no no, I mean water. Not tea, not herbal tea. Water is water, so ... water!

I tell you, how fussy is that?! What makes water better than herbal tea? You can never satisfy these people! I make myself my tea and shrug off her insistent comments. Tea for the morning, water with dinner. Okay??

And blueberry muffins, baked later in the morning for the little girl who always eats three when she sees them resting, still warm, on the cake platter.

If you look at the calendar, you'll see us moving quickly toward Christmas and yet, I have paused in thinking about it. Somehow routine stuff has filled my mornings and those imagined leisure hours have completely fizzled into not much free time at all. I will recharge my holiday batteries today. Or tomorrow. As soon as I have enough time to make my way to the charging station! This weekend? The next week?

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. 

Happy and insistent that we click into our routines. As usual I am of two minds how much to indulge her great love for repetition. Same snack, same fruits, same spot on the orange couch. Rereading same books. She is always happiest if we stick with the tried and true.

In the evening, I drop her off, pick up spinach from my CSA, and return to the farmhouse. Chili tonight. And a salad. Talk about repetition! Might I be just a little like my granddaughter? Favorite suppers, favorite chocolate afterwards,  a glass of wine. A movie. And finally, a book upstairs. The set up rarely changes. And isn't that just grand!

Tuesday

It started off like the kind of day that maybe needs some oil squirted on it to take the creaks out. The tiny issues, the kind that aren't really much of anything but can be annoying nonetheless, were piling on. The cold and brittle landscape. The chickens, all fleeing the barn, why? Because we have another opossum hounding the coop. (This time we catch him before he gets inside to do damage.) Then there's Ed on the couch, still feeling lousy, insisting that "it's just a cold" even though I remind him he's been at it for nearly four weeks now. Then, too, more appointments to make, knee to wrap up, I mean -- come on! Let's start again, on a better foot!

Okay, I dump old bread pieces for the cheepers. The hiccuping hen is still hiccuping, but she is eating robustly along with the others so we will continue to monitor her and see where this is heading. 

Then breakfast. Dance is prancing on the table (grrr!), but she is merely a little hungry for affection so I do a pet-and-eat routine that seems to keep her nose out of my food.

And so contentment sets it. And then my sister calls -- it's been such a long time -- and it's really good to talk to her again and now contentment is rising. 

And the snow begins to fall. 

I mean, we cant fool ourselves -- it's not a snow cover worth beans, but it reminds us that patience will be rewarded. Some day.

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop and we zip through her farmhouse routines... 

... and I get her ready for dance...

And now she is at ballet and I am sitting back, enjoying my kindle and I think -- wow, what a perfectly lovely day!!

In the thick of this moment of bliss, Ed calls and tells me he can't find Peach.

Good old Peach, emphasis on the "old." We got her off of Craigslist in 2017 and she was already laying eggs then, so who knows how many years she had behind her. We sure do know she is old. She moves slowly, doesn't go far. Today, she came up to the house, but only because the opossum freaked her out. I don't know that she ever went back. 

We searched everywhere. Maybe she's just laying low, too feeble to hobble back to the barn. Maybe she was snatched. Maybe she died of old age. Maybe none of that. We'll have to see tomorrow if she somehow shows up, magically, as if nothing had transpired, as if it was just one of those squeaky days where everything didn't go exactly right, even though, in the end, we all were just fine.

Monday

If you're one of those people who leans toward arthritis (a funny image!), docs are always throwing therapy at you. I have had recommended: therapy for my back, therapy for my knee, therapy for my foot, therapy for my hands, and today -- a new one! Therapy for my neck. I almost called it off. My neck is feeling fine! Still, you can't just show up for therapy when you're aching. You have to be forward looking! You have to take charge!

So I went.

(After the morning rituals, including a lovely reheated Viennoiseries breakfast with a slowly mending Ed.)

Physical therapy for a neck is in the same category as spine therapies. As my older and wiser PT person tells me -- they're all related. (Then she proceeds to explain to me how they are related. I a little bit tune out on the details. She tells me she loves anatomy. I'm a more neutral on it.) But what surprises me is that for once, we don't really do exercises. She does all the work, with a lot of head holding and gentle twisting and sometimes I swear she is not doing anything at all, but then she comments how this is shifting, and she can feel that moving, and I believe her because afterwards I do feel, well, a little different. 

So, if someone recommends neck therapy for you, I say go for it! It's like an upper body massage without the essential oils and soothing music.

It does take time though. I am amazed, in fact, at how much time I continue to spend in clinics, considering that at this point, no one can tell me I am sick. We are constantly investigating! Indeed, they're still "investigating" the mystery illness from September. These people never give up!

It is, otherwise, a very quiet, very gray winter day. The landscape is at its dullest, even though I try not to use that word, realizing that a sleeping meadow or a collapsed flower field, or a dozing forest are all entitled to their rest period. Who am I to cast disparaging comments in their direction! Still, aren't you wishing we'd at least get some snow to add gentility to my farmette walks? I do!

In the afternoon Snowdrop is here. 

(against a gray-brown landscape)

This is a kid who really likes school, always claims to have 10 out of 10 days, bounces off without hesitation each early morning and yet, she is definitely counting the days til winter break. If I had to guess, it's the incredibly early start to the day and the tedious homework assignments that are off-putting for her. Honestly, I am with her, being one who could never understand why kids are loaded with additional work for the after school hours. I'm sure there is pedagogical logic behind it and maybe for some kids it's a necessary lesson in responsibility, but I would so much rather see a teacher merely say -- read a book and be prepared to tell us about it next week, than give out those ghastly sheets with sums and more sums and even more sums to do at home.

Ah well, the girl has plenty of time this afternoon to do nothing more than read and play here. Homework gets put off until... another time.

(ah, so this is where we can find color on a snowless cloudy December day!)

In the evening we continue the tradition of reheating leftovers from the weekend. An easy start to a busy week!

oh the holidays we love!

Did you know that today is National Cookie Day? So what did you do to celebrate it? Nothing? Nothing?? Silly you.

It's hard for me to bring out even more cookies today, because I have been "bringing them out" since I went to Clasen's two weeks ago to pick up a dozen packs of chocolate covered gingerbread. These have been my everyday go-to lunch since then (oh knock it off! I eat healthy otherwise!). Still, it's a cold, crisp, beautiful December 4th. Name Day for my awesome friend in Poland. (Happy Name Day to you!) And National Cookie Day here, in the U.S. 

Maybe I shouldn't ignore it? 

Fine. After I take care of the animals...

... I set out to Madison Sourdough Bakery to pick up a few cookies that Ed loves and cinnamon rolls (our favorites these days) for breakfast. 

On the drive home, I detour slightly to glance over at the corn fields to our east. Yesterday, we saw seemingly hundreds of cranes gather here in the late afternoon. 

(a sample)

They do that just before they take off for the south. And perhaps they did begin their journey because today there was only one. I hope you know what you're doing, buddy!

Breakfast. Ed does ask me if we've gone down the rabbit hole in our breakfast eating. I used to never stray from oatmeal. Maybe granola on a special occasion. Now, it seems that every other day I drive to the bakery for our morning Viennoiseries.  [You know the term, right? A Viennoiserie is a bakery item made from puff pastry or a yeasty dough, which gives it a lightly sweet taste. It can be further sweetened by light sugar or raisins or chocolate. It's a breakfast food and though France has recently succeeded in placing the French baguette on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Viennoiseries are really common throughout all of Europe.] 

Well, we're in the holiday season. Oatmeal for breakfast can make its way to the list of resolutions for the New Year. Though honestly, when you get older, you tend to want to balance life's enjoyment with obsessive healthy eating. After all, your teeth may fall out and your insides may warp any day now. May as well bite into croissants while the biting is good!

Then I wrap. The way I do it now (slowly) is a luxury. When I was at the Law School, first as a student and then as a faculty member, December was a real killer. Exams. To prepare for, then later, to write and grade. It was by far the craziest time of the year. Too, we didn't have the internet for shopping. Lines, everywhere. My vivid memory of December with the little ones is of packed parking lots and long hikes to stores and malls, with bundled up kids, who then had to get all unbundled inside, and re-bundled to get back to the car. Shopping bags, mittens, scarves, caps. Groceries to get. Holiday meals to think about. Insane. And so now, as I wrap a few boxes each day, I smile at the easiness of the job. Yeah, I dont like wrapping. No one likes wrapping. I wish I could see pretty boxes under the tree without me laying a hand on a single roll of wrapping paper, but it cant be done and so I wrap. Slowly. And easily. Well, but for the creaky bones!

The day is not without drama. Ed is having a relapse in whatever bug it is that has been hounding him since mid November and so spending time under a quilt on the couch feels just fine to him. I'm in the kitchen, working on dinner. It's early. 4:30 maybe. But the sun has set already and the cheepers are beginning to settle into their dozy positions. Except I see one walking up the path from the barn.

Ed, why is one of the hens walking up this way?

Don't know. I'll be putting them away in about 15 minutes.

Ed, why is another one at the barn door?

Don't know.

It's not right...

I leave my prep work and go to the barn. There's an opossum in the coop. He's about to go up to the roost. I speed open the roosting box and grab a sleepy old Peach, then slam the door on the chicken hungry guy.  I call Ed over, all the while holding onto Peach. She was one minute away from being someone's dinner. The other cheepers are scattered all over the barn, terrified and tired. 

We trap the invader. We have a place we can him to. It's a bit of a drive, but Ed's up for it.

I go back to fixing dinner.

The young family is here tonight. It's the first time that the boys see the tree and I have mild trepidations about Sandpiper, but I guess he is distracted by all the other ways where he can get his sweet little hands into trouble because he (mostly) leaves the tree alone!

(tree play)

(can I have some of what you're chopping?)

(dinner)

(proud use of fork)

(playing an old favorite: hair salon)

Chickens are sleeping, cats are sleeping, Ed is sleeping. Farmhouse quiet. Winter quiet. Everyone is safe. I think I'll have a little cookie.

what do you remember?

Morning errands and chores in early December. A quiet, sleepy landscape. No weed to pull, no flower to snip. This is when I let my thoughts run freely. Today they run back to the early winters of my childhood. 

If you come from a Christmas celebrating family, ask yourself this: what stands out in your memories of childhood Christmases? Over and above everything else? What made you happy? 

It's a beautiful morning, though a very nippy one! Still, the light is gorgeous.

Ed comes down for breakfast and we're feeling like a moment of humor would be good, so he brings down his computer and we watch a modestly funny Colbert monologue... 

And then I'm off. To pick up farm produce. To drop off a return (already?!). To take photos of the kids for their family holiday card. So, lots of driving, lots of music, lots of feelings resurfacing. Ones that I remember so well from my young Christmases.

I didn't really start loving this holiday until we moved to New York for my dad's UN job. I was seven then and it was as if I had entered a new universe. Everything changed. And so, too, did Christmas. Suddenly it seemed larger than life. Maybe it was that I simply grew into it. In a few years I was allowed to go out in the city on my own. My most frequented destination? The Woolworth (5and10) store on Lexington and 45th. At Christmas time it had every imaginal shiny holiday trinket and decoration, candy cane, greeting card, and carol book. I'd squander my allowance there and I'd bring my new treasures home, creating my own Christmas there. 

A favorite? That book of carols, with illustrations of what we all liked to imagine as the picture perfect Christmas: a snow covered village, a decorated tree with children dancing, stockings hanging from the mantle. Norman Rockwell would have loved it. Add to this my beloved comic books: Dennis the Menace had a Christmas special edition! Such were my prized possessions!

I learned the songs quickly enough and from then on I was hooked. But on my own. My family remained neutral on the holiday throughout all my childhood. Who can blame them -- my mother was Polish, but not really raised in Poland and so those traditions -- big meal on Eve, family visits on Day -- weren't familiar to her. My father? Oh, it wasn't for a man to "do Christmas." Woman's work. And my mom did make the effort when we were little. There would be a tree, in our room. There would be presents under it the morning of. But there was no magic to it. I quickly figured out where she herself hid the presents -- in her closet, upper left shelf -- and so Santa was never even a possibility. Mom was him and she dutifully purchased the album I coveted or the next book in the Nancy Drew series. My parents did not themselves exchange gifts and we had no relatives that would send anything to any of us. Not even a card. I asked for a Mary Poppins record and I got it. Straight from her closet to under the tree. 

Eventually, this ritual (tree, a few gifts) would diminish and then just disappear. So, Christmas was entirely my own. And in my world, there was magic. 

I am thinking of the fairy-mermaid-detective-unicorn stories Snowdrop makes up routinely. She doesn't really believe in them, but she lives in them nonetheless. I lived in my Christmas world. The carols were poems. They did not have to have greater meaning than that. And of course, New York went all out on Christmas, in my eyes at least! [I am reminded of a Snowdrop comment this week. She tells me -- my mom doesn't really decorate a whole lot on the outside of the house, but inside? She goes all out! Oh children! I hardly think my daughter goes "all out" inside, but to the kids, the comparison is to the house as it was before Christmas. So, now, with the tree and a few boughs and lights here and there? All out!]

By 12, I was roaming the city up and down and searching out that urban wonderland -- the Lord & Taylor store windows, the Rockefeller Center tree -- magic! And then home again to my book of carols and the album I would eventually get of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing Christmas, Christmas, time is here, time for joy and time for cheer! I realized as an adult that you have to work on joy -- it doesn't just happen. In my childhood, Christmas wasn't about joy -- it was a warm and emotional place, very deeply felt. And out would come the comic book -- as I recall, it had the story that also aired on TV in 1960 where Dennis really really wanted a horse for Christmas. And in the comic strip, he is on the range, with horses, and the cowboy croons -- it's Christmas Eve on the range, boys, it's Christmas Eve on the range. I got goosebumps every time I read those bubbled words.

And now, when I hear O Little Town of Bethlehem, I am, in my head, opening my carols book to the page with the snow covered village (odd association with Bethlehem but oh well!). And I swear, every Christmas Eve, whether it will have been with my two Christmas loving girls, or my grandkids, I want to smile at all that I see before me and say -- it's Christmas Eve on the range, boys, it's Christmas Eve on the range. Every Christmas Eve.

As for the photo taking of the three grandkids? They were wild and happy and I think we did just fine, even if Sandpiper's bump on the head from yesterday's fall on the playground (a rather rambunctious classmate pushed him) is clearly visible! But then, he's 18 months old and I am grateful that he gave us one of his big grins. (The other two have delivered plenty of smiles over the years, but the youngest child is always asked to grin for no discernible to him or her reason, so it's grand when they just go along with it, because, well, they're happy.)

I wont post their Christmas photo -- that's theirs to keep. But here are three fun ones: two sweet rejects, and a great second choice!

In the afternoon Ed and I finally dragged ourselves out for a walk in the park. My knee had really stiffened up in the days of no walks and so I pushed for an outing, despite the cold. And as always, it was beautiful.

(Ice along the edges of Lake Waubesa...)

A frittata-for-dinner night. Warm and deeply felt.

Friday

When I was hospitalized with a strange virus back in September, I embarked on a journey of tests. Each doc who would come into my room would schedule another series, looking for clues as to what was destroying my health then. Everyone had a different idea.

The trouble with this approach is that if you test an older person long enough and far and wide, you are going to unravel mysteries you never expected to discover. At the very least, you will find yourself back on a retesting journey, just to be sure that the quaint new discovery isn't slowly (or not so slowly) gnawing away at your insides.

This morning I had to repeat some of the hospital tests for exactly this reason even though I am quite certain they will reveal absolutely nothing of interest to anybody (Ed would say that this will have been entirely predictable). I do wonder if Ed's approach -- a more balanced acceptance of what you need to test away and what you can ignore -- gives you a better outcome in the end. I mean, he's out enjoying lunch with friends, I'm sipping some toxic cocktail in a clinic room. Who had the better morning? 

It's a cold day, and, too, it's a frustratingly brown day. Meaning we have before us a winter landscape without snow. This is discouraging for the two of us who are just itching to go out on skis while the knees still permit us (well, really me) to go out on skis. I see no snow in the forecast. Plenty of freezing dry days. The ones that crack your skin and tickle your nasal passages, but leave you with that brown landscape.

But, I do love these seasonal early morning walks to the barn! Each month offers a different perspective. 

And of course, I also love our wintry breakfasts. Oatmeal is so perfect for December mornings that I can even let go of my appetite for croissants and cinnamon rolls. For a day or two!

In the quiet of an empty farmhouse, I read too many articles from various newspapers. This is not a source of pleasure or joy. There is such a thing as too much knowledgable speculation about the state of the world. I should have gone for a walk instead. I and the planet would have been better off for it. (If I walk, then my health improves and I have to use fewer resources to test for diseases as I get older, right?)

In the early afternoon I pick up a happy Snowdrop and bring her to the farmette.

She has been begging her parents (every time I drop her off in the evening and we pass the display of holiday lights at Olin park) to do the holiday drive through past twinkling Santas and reindeer and vignettes from the North Pole ("I dont believe that Santa brings us presents, but I do think that there is a Santa Claus somewhere out there!" Fair enough...). Her parents (rightly) have put her off for a bit, but finally agreed that it should be tonight. She is ecstatic with anticipation.

We read. Back to Judy Blume. I swear we will start in on new stuff next week. But in the meanwhile, she is happily reliving the adventures of a fourth grade nothing.

I drop her off, vaguely considering going through the light display myself on the way home. 

I haven't done it since my girls were too young to drive themselves and I powered through it for them and with them, music on loud, lights twinkling all around us. 

In the end I turn around and skip it. It's just not that exciting to do on your own. Perhaps this is one of those seasonal joys that you truly have to be young to fully appreciate. 

At the farmhouse, I light my spruce-balsam-juniper candle and put the pot of soup on the stove. Lovely scents and tastes and twinkly things, all inside our small little home.

Thursday

Welcome, December! Can I give you an award for trying the hardest under adverse circumstances? Dark days -- but so much light and color in our homes! Cold weather sweeping through -- and still there's the hope of snow! People singing, music playing, bakers firing up the ovens, mail delivery with delightful messages from friends who may be far, or may otherwise not write you and yet, here we are, updating each other, because we care.

I know not everyone celebrates Christmas. I live with a person who doesn't celebrate Christmas. And I myself pick and choose what from this holiday fits within my worldview. [My religious beliefs are amply documented in Like a Swallow, so if you have read it, you'll know where I stand on those issues. A hint: just because I come from a country that to this day has 93% of its people self identifying as Catholic (NYT, November 2022), and that's a drop from the 99% of Poles describing themselves as such in my youth, and just because I love listening to O Holy Night, and I was moved to tears at age twelve by the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, it does not mean that I am one who would ever complain that Christmas has become too, well, secular. I truly believe that people should celebrate the holiday, any holiday, however they want to. If for some it means crazy shopping and holiday partying and singing jingle bells all day long -- why, isn't that better than losing yourself in the gloom of a month that is, well, rather gloomy? I write as a Pole-turned-Wisconsinite. Gloom, I tell you!]

So, welcome, December! You are at once dark and gloomy, but, too, the most deliberately colorful, delightful, and playful month of the year. (Well, for me anyway.)

I wake early, because Ed opened the door and "accidentally" let the cats into the bedroom. I do not like cats in the bedroom at night. I do not sleep well with cats in the bedroom at night. So I growl and fein deep displeasure, though honestly, it's the nudge I needed to get up and get going.

He asked, as he does each morning -- what do you have to do today? I tick off the list: animal care, tree care, tidy the downstairs, mail first batch of (international) cards, grocery delivery, bakery visit to celebrate our return to normal eating, first wrapping job, Snowdrop sitting, daughter chat, dinner prep.

In other words a pretty quiet day? -- he says. 

I forgive him his comment because when he comes down for breakfast, and I turn off the holiday music -- an automatic gesture acknowledging the fact that Ed loves quiet, he stops me: you like it. who was that -- Frank Sinatra? And it all ends when, December 26? You want it on, you should keep it on.

Sweet, sweet Ed. 

I pick up a bouncy Snowdrop. But she is not a girl who wants to spend any time outside these days. She allows me one photo...

And in she goes.

A friend of mine sent her a little advent calendar card and she gets right to it. A December 1st prerogative. 

And in the evening, I drop her at her Thursday activity (Mathnasium, which she loves) and continue to her home for a visit with her mom. The funny moment of the day comes when I lose the car keys at their place. Not in my bag, not in my pockets, not on the car floor (Ed's suggestion), not on their floor, not on the grass outside (searched with a flashlight), not under the car. Gone! But how could that be?

Many, many searches later, I find them. They had slipped out of my pocket, down between the cushions of the armchair in which I had been sitting. 

At the farmhouse, as I chop veggies in the kitchen for a supper of a hearty soup, I think -- maybe Ed was right. Maybe it was, in the end, a pretty quiet day. Colorful, musical, and busy. In a quiet sort of way.

(A much better place for cats to sleep, rather than the bed upstairs, don't you think? To the left -- meet Friendly. To the right -- Unfriendly. So named because she once was that. These days, Friendly adores Ed and Unfriendly adores me, and they're both, like the rest of the cats, terribly spooked by strange noises and strange people.)

Wednesday

I am on this day a designated driver. That is my sole job and responsibility. I have, therefore, no child care duties, no greater obligation, nothing typed into my calendar, no big agenda to move toward completion. 

Sure, I feed the animals and it does feel like a chore this morning, because it is so cold out there! We wont move beyond freezing. All that mushy wetness yesterday? Frozen solid today. Only the youngest hens go out. And then they immediately find a wind-free hiding place.

Breakfast? On my own.

And then I wait until I'm called into action.

At least my driving today consists of shuttling Ed back and forth for medical stuff (that is the assignment) that can be taken care of within the perimeters of Madison. When we attend to his eyes (that comes next week), we have to go to the end of the state and back. He chooses his health care providers carefully.

Ed as a patient is very cool and blasé. He uses few words to communicate with the staff. I fill in the pleasantries. As we get older, I expect these visits will grow in number but for now, we keep them to a minimum. Both of us like to pretend we are very self sufficient. 

When you have been together for as long as we have, you understand each others habits and preferences pretty well. But all bets are off when health care issues arise (and to be clear: Ed is not sick; this stuff is routine). Both Ed and I like to minimize what ails us, hating any pity or advice. But, I tend to be a user of the health care system and he is exactly the opposite. When you go in with him to a clinic, he barely understands the protocols. I'm there not only as a designated driver but also as an interpreter. Do this, put away that, go there... And so on.

Of course, nothing phases the guy. A doc could come in and tell him -- sorry, but you have an incurable disease and we expect that you will be dead in two minutes. I'm certain he'd just turn to me and say, Oh, okay, bye gorgeous. Don't forget to put away the chickens and feed the cats tonight.

Man, I love his attitude!

So the day is spent on me driving and eventually, at sunset, we go home and luckily he does not get that diagnosis of only two minutes of life left within him, so he puts away the cheepers and feeds the cats and I fix dinner and he dozes off on the couch, because the whole idea of going to a clinic for the better part of the day is exhausting for a guy who can chop down trees and lift heavy objects but cannot get himself to see a doc more than once every very many years.

Tuesday

I've been thinking about the novels of Elena Ferrante lately. You've read the Neopolitan Novels maybe? I did, but it's been a while and I read them for the pleasure of the good story that they are and not for the weightier issues that underpin the entire narrative. I've long recognized that when I have a lot on my plate, I don't think enough about the books I read. But I'm thinking about these ones now.

My friend sent me an interview with Ferrante that she came across in the Guardian. (You can find it here.) As I was reading it, I couldn't help but think how much easier it is to recognize the brutal oppression of women in countries far from us (Iran of course, but also so many others), but how much harder it is to recognize patriarchal structures in the complicated societies we ourselves inhabit. Once women have gained access to educational institutions and to some of the basic human rights (as they have in the U.S. and in many other countries), once they gained the freedom to move out of confining homes and workplaces, many of us assumed that they, we could easily knock down the "few remaining impediments" to personal freedom and equality. And we certainly believed that once outed (through open and loud discussions about inequality) why then of course, oppressive patriarchy would become a thing of the past. I know I myself left Poland in the end because I could not imagine living in the male dominated culture that existed in that country then (I write about it in Like a Swallow). I saw the United States as being on the move, ripping apart preconceptions about gender, about race too. Others had done the work (that was not yet started in Poland). Once here, I relaxed. And then I fell into one gendered trap after the next, drowning in my inability to recognize and react to what was happening all around me as I married, had kids, sought to get a degree and find satisfying work (in that order). I wasn't strong enough nor mature nor wise enough to see the pitfalls and to act decisively. But now, thinking about it in the context of the Ferrante interview, I see that using her markers of equality, I was doomed to fail anyway. Mine was not the generation that was going to free women of gender-based constraints. The structures (created over the centuries by men) were not in place for it. It's funny, but when I was just thirteen years old and recounted to my dad my various girlish ambitions, he told me then that women were not going to attain equal footing in his lifetime or even in mine. I was stunned. I thought he was wrong. I felt I could go after any job I wanted, study any discipline at the university. Somehow I never looked beyond those goals. 

Though I don't usually pre-announce trips here on Ocean, I thought it fitting this time to mention that in January, I'll be going to Naples. Not exactly just to poke into the neighborhoods artfully described in the Ferrante novels, but on the other hand both my friend who will accompany me and I are at an age where we can use the prompt of those books to reflect on what Ferrante wrote about postwar Italy and perhaps reframe a little of what we lived through in postwar Poland.

*     *     *

It's gray and wet outside -- nothing to cheer about there. Though maybe there is magic in a misty late November morning. Maybe that dampness releases the pungent earthy aromas from the fields and gardens. Wet leaves, muddy fields, rotting wood -- these have a place in our annual calendar of scents. 

We eat breakfast. I return to oatmeal. It seems fitting for this day.

*     *     *

Watching the three girls (out of the five grandchildren) make their way through each day, I have to wonder  about the world they will inhabit as adult women. I've learnt that even in the worst of times, not everyone is slated to confront the same barriers to personal growth in the same way. Fifty years ago, when I was growing up, there were women who did not fall into traps set by societal expectations and institutions. And I myself was lucky enough to avoid the grossest and most egregious pitfalls. The independence I feel now is a product of that luck. (And believe me, writing freely as I do here, on Ocean, moving around the planet without someone telling me that I can't or shouldn't do it -- these are markers of freedom many would kill for.)

My optimistic hope is that these little girls will get a hell of a lot closer to free agency than you and I ever could. Creating new non-patriarchal structures is a work in progress, that's for sure. But, I don't think I was wrong in believing that here at least the work is well underway. You may not see it in the recent court decisions affecting women, but perhaps we can recognize it in the reactions to those decisions.

In the meantime, this little girl is here after school, reading books, making up stories in the play room and doing a lot of Ed teasing. 

No ballet today. Somebody forgot to pack her ballet clothes into her backpack.

[I was amused with her yesterday because in the same way that I went back to Nancy Drew books when I was already approaching adolescence, she has recently gone back to rereading Cam Jansen, a younger version of the same idea. And in yesterday's book, Cam was rewarded for solving a mystery by the owner of the amusement park where the crime took place. Snowdrop said to me -- gaga, did you notice how in all the Cam Jansen books, the owners and managers of amusement parks, stores and such are always women? I had to laugh. I told her -- the author of these books wants you to know that women can and do hold positions of power and wealth. And then I wondered -- at this age, does she even doubt that this is the case?]

*     *     *

Our evening is a little different because Ed has some routine medical stuff before him and so he's not eating tonight. I do a quick stir fry, eat it equally rapidly, by myself, and then settle in on the couch to watch a TV show -- a rare thing for us. (Movies -- yes. TV shows -- almost never.) This one is about the movie Love Actually and how its themes play out now, 20 years later. I can understand why some people find this movie to be flawed. Yes, okay. Everything in life is flawed. But hey, dig deeper and something beautiful will emerge. I guarantee it.

And the tree lights twinkle and the ornaments shine and Dance, our grand dame of a cat thinks this piece of beauty is there for her to swat at and play with. 

She has a point: Christmas trees are to be shared by all. 

Swat, hit, swat, dangle... Smile.