Did you thaw what I thaw?

Trees, once covered in snow, are down to a thin coating on their branches. Will that be gone next week? Perhaps. It’s going to be interesting to see how much of a mess the weekend’s January thaw leaves behind when followed by Monday’s rain forecast. Will the dragon’s teeth still line the roof edges? [Meanwhile, my home town of Boston is enjoying temperatures in the mid-50s. Sigh!]

dragon’s teeth icicles

Photo by J. Harrington

The plants in the bulb garden planter are growing tall. I won’t be surprised if we see some blossoms next week. Plus, it’s almost time for me to begin thinking about collecting some red osier dogwood stems to bring into the house and force bud burst. I think some additional melting will diminish the likelihood the Better Half may need to get a wrecker to haul me out of the marsh if I get stuck. We’ll give it at least a week or two, maybe more. Much as we like long naps from time to time, most years we think winter overdoes it when it settles down for one.

If the snow banks shrink a bunch this weekend it will really please the dogs, who keep jumping into the snow lining the edges of the driveway to see if it's too deep for comfort and deciding each time this week that it is. I feel pretty much the same and my legs are lots longer than either of the dogs, especially the beagle’s. Earlier this week I clambered through snow that came over the tops of my mukluks when I went to see if I could figure out why the outside temperature reading on our thermostat had climbed to 55. If the sensor was out of whack I didn’t care but if it was reading that kind of actual heat, I was concerned.

I failed to see any heat source, or even find the sensor. The next morning, a service technician checked it out and told us they’d been getting a number of calls. The combination of thaw and freeze and snow and wet had put a number of sensors out of kilter. Ours has been approximately accurate since the tech checked it so I now sleep better at night.

Have you ever thought about all the very large number of things that could go wrong each and every day? Are you grateful that so few actually do go wrong on any given day? Is that something worth pondering this Friday the 13th?

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

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