Category: Bottles of Hours

On some mornings, the sheets feel especially soft, the blankets wonderfully warm. Outside the kitchen window, the thermometer tells why,

But in the lilac, the wee birds, feathered balls plumped against the cold, are already gathered, waiting for seed. And the woodstove, too, wants feeding.

I pour a cup of hot coffee, add a dollop of cream, pull on my boots and gloves, and out I go. The birds flee, as if I have startled them from deep dreams. But the chickadees return as I sing to them, chirping their own little songs. And before I am even back in the house, the rest of the birds come, too.

The warmth from the stove’s glowing embers greets my face as I open its door and offer it a fresh supply of the maple branches I dragged down the hill last fall and cut to just the right size.

I sweep the bits of snow my boots tracked in, sip coffee, watch the birds through the window.

The rising sun is painting the trees with gold.

This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Yes. I will be glad and savor its joy.

Jack Frost left this etching on my window this morning. I call it “Dreaming of Palm Trees.” The temperature here has been hovering just north of 0 for a couple days now. I think Jack was offering a getaway.

Half a century ago, musicians I liked wrote a piece called “Thinking is the Best Way to Travel.” Prescient boys, those. I think they got that one exactly right.

I call her The Mother Tree. She dominates the south hill, rising from near its crest, her graceful branches spread wide, as if in welcome.

I’ve watched her swell with pink buds in the springtime that evolve into summer’s green leaves. In autumn, she wears red as only a maple can do. And now, in winter, she dances naked in the wind and embraces the falling snow.

She’s twice as old as I am, and maybe half again more.

A hundred years ago, a road that stretched between New York and Chicago passed beneath her limbs. Travelers would stop to rest and perhaps to spend the night in the house just down the hill from her, the one where I live now. She’s seen the miners dig coal right over there to the west, and clear fields in the valley to the north, turning them into farmland. She’s watched the lives of all the woodland’s creatures, and of the humans who passed by or stopped to make their homes here .

I figure she knows a thing or two. So when I’m troubled and want to scream to the world about the errors of its ways, about all its injustices and wrongs, I open the back door and gaze at her for a while. And she tells me to be at peace, that it is the wind’s task to bluster, and the creek’s role to roar, and that some of us are meant simply to stand, and watch, and let go. Your gifts will bud and spread and fall, all of their own accord. And your essence will sing through your being.

The snow plow just went past for about the twentieth time today. But the snow has finally stopped now and this pass should be his last. According to the weather guys, we have three days of sunshine coming up. Three whole days! In a row! It’s like a reward for enduring the gloom.

The first day after the Big Snow I got to go out and play. I shoveled the sidewalk and made paths to everywhere in the yard I might need to go. But then everything iced up, and navigating got tricky. Indoors was the safest place to be.

It was sort of like a weather-imposed lockdown. It called forth a renewed wave of empathy for all of us who suffered inside for reasons (or lack of them, depending on your point of view) unrelated to weather.

I was beginning to get bored. But then I remembered to exercise, get the blood pumping, clear the pipes. While I bounced on my rebounder, I started to make a mental list of all the things I could do inside. Then, from out of nowhere, the Statler Brothers popped into my head and started singing: “Counting flowers on the wall . . .” It made me laugh. Things-I-Could-Do-Indoors lists can be a lot more creative and fun than that.

Laughing was just what I needed, the icing on the exercise cake so to speak. Try ‘em both if you’re bored. Then make a list.

When I pulled back the studio window’s drapes, I was surprised to see more snow falling. Yesterday’s warmth had melted every bit of it from the branches of the trees. Now, once again, the world was a wonderland.

I noticed that a few little chickadees were huddled on the branches of the lilac bush above the rocks where I pour sunflower seeds for them and their friends. Ten minutes after I delivered the morning’s supply, the cardinals, jays, titmice, and mourning doves joined them, flying in from every direction.

The snow was falling so heavily that the birds were hardly visible in the lilac’s branches. But I welcomed their color, as subdued as it seemed. It reminded me that beneath the snow, flowers slept. I planted new bulbs in the fall. I like that little ritual. It provides me with quiet little bursts of anticipation as I plod through winter’s dark and often colorless days.

I wondered if, on some level, the birds perching in the lilac sensed the dreams of the fragrant blossoms that the tree held deep in its cells. I hope so. And I hope those dreams wrapped them in joy, even as the sparkling snow fell around them.

We climb on them and play with them and pass them by without notice. We give them as gifts, or if we’re lucky, receive them. We keep them in bowls and pockets and jars. These gifts from the heart of the earth . . .

When I came across it in the snowy park, I laughed. Something about rocks invites us to play.

The find at the park prompted me to attend to the rocks I keep at home, gifts and discoveries tucked in corners, waiting to bring me memories and smiles . . . Enjoy!

“You never know, when you get up in the morning, what the day will bring.” That’s one of my pet sayings, and it proves itself true over and over.

Sure, for the most part our days unfold more or less the way we expected. So much so that sometimes we find ourselves longing for a break in the routine. “The daily grind,” we call it, as if its sameness wears us down.

I think that’s why life gives us a jolt now and then. “Surprise!” it says.

It keeps us from getting rusty.