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2024-02-13 - 9:42 a.m.
snowed under
it's snowing here, big cottony clumps that weigh down the branches. shoveling the sidewalk and driveway as snow throwers rumble around the block, that trapped feeling rises like bile. i just want to take off into the woods on cross country skis for the day, but i have neither skis nor woods in my backyard. tethered to this neighborhood by good schools and low interest rates, i have to make myself make the best of it. to do otherwise, i think, is a form of self harm.
* * *
my son, home from school, lingers in his pajamas. he is writing valentine cards for his classmates, fingers folded around his pencil in a practiced grip. he has so much of his life to himself now, and this does not mean less work for me. this introduction of lurking variables.i wonder how other people do all this. how does anyone manage to look after young children and disabled relatives and aging parents, cook and clean and make repairs. go to work, run errands, read books and stay abreast of the news, find new music and keep up with skincare and fitness and friendships and hobbies and get enough sleep?
* * *
this weekend, i am driving to a different state, shuttling items from one small museum to another. i really like the point-of-contact guy at this other museum. he's the kind of person who says, "well, i'm not an expert on this, but..." and then spends twenty minutes relating marvelous and charming facts about balance scales, or netsuke, or how you store historic insect collections so that they remain amenable to new technology. the kind of awkward, not-obviously-fit fella who floats down a ski slope like a wisp of eiderdown carried by a zephyr. the way he speaks about his wife and kid makes me think our families would get along so well. gosh, i miss having friends.q: why don't you find a friend like this close to home?
a: well, i can, and sometimes i do - but then they move away.
* * *
semper hiemps, semper spirantes frigora cauri; and yet i have to do things differently if i want them to change.
* * *
reading: "days at the morisaki bookshop," by satoshi yagisawa. i am not sure i would recommend this book to someone not already familiar with modern japanese literature. if the name-dropped books and authors do not invoke known worlds, the story itself feels slight, somewhat disjunct, not entirely believable. but the way these other literary spaces press in and blossom out is transformative. it's a book that values its reader.
listening to: windchimes, mourning doves, the ticking of the clock and the damp patter of snow.
working on: a real job. got to get that stay-at-home-mom stink off my cv.
in the garden: i wish this wonderful snow could stick around. the tightly edited twigs and seed heads are so beautiful in the winter garden.
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