Morning, Winter

Cold again today. A few beautiful snow showers/flurries add a seasonal touch. The Better Half has been delivered to the airport. She's giving herself a Christmas/pending retirement/putting up with us present of a trip to Paris for a few days. The dogs join us in missing her and wishing her fun and safety in equal measure while she's gone.

We spent much of the morning writing checks to various charitable organizations, mostly environmental. We're avoiding the "Hurry, hurry, hurry before the chance is gone" rush of "Giving Tuesday." We'll write a few more checks later this week or early next. Having charitable organizations act like car salesmen, "it may not be here tomorrow," troubles us, especially at this time of year.

Winter morning magic

Photo by J. Harrington

On the way to the airport, we stopped at a branch library to pick up a copy of Jim Harrison's memoir, Off to the Side. We've become more and more intrigued about the friendship between Harrison and Ted Kooser, another of our favorite writers. There's not much said about how the friendship started in Kooser's biography so now we'll see what, if anything, we can learn from the Harrison side of things. We've read both Kooser's Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison and the collaborative poetry from Kooser and Harrison, Braided Creek: A conversation in poetry. Each writer has a rural background but Nebraska and Michigan are pretty far apart. We'll let you know if we learn anything worth sharing.

Depending on the weather, our mood, and ...?, we plan to get over to St. Croix Falls and get some Christmas cards, have a cup of coffee in Taylors Falls, and generally poke around our extended neighborhood, rather than sit on our butt in the house and stare out the windows. If Winter weather hinders your getting out and about, we strongly suggest you read this posting by Maria Popova on her blog Brain Pickings. We're too old to qualify as a young cynic, but could stand a refresher and reinforcement in living better in a "culture that rewards cynicism and selfishness over kindness and largeness of heart...."

By Ted Kooser,

from Winter Morning Walks

december 19

Cold, and snow in the air.


The cedars in the roadside ditches
are nearly black against the many grays
of this winter morning, but unlike
most things with darkness at their centers
they don't turn an impenetrable shell
to the light. Rather, like ink soon wet paper,
their dark limbs bleed into the light,
reaching farther and farther
into the whiteness of lightly falling snow.

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