We'll pay for this

Recent weather, plus that forecast for the near term, has been unseasonably warm around here. We foresee one of two options playing out. Either

1. Once astronomical Winter joins meteorological Winter, onslaughts of arctic cold and excessive snowfall will raise the Pain-In-the-Posterior Index (PIP) to astronomical levels; or


2. Climate disruption will proceed to make meteorological mincemeat of much of our remaining seasons next year. Floods and/or droughts, year-round Seasonal Affective Disorder or perpetual sunburns, food shortages and transportation disruptions will beset us. Perhaps most distressing, we could be faced with a walleye opener with lakes still ice covered. Remember, there was almost no tracking snow this deer season.

All because some of us were praying for, and received, relief from the unseasonable cold, cloudy weather we experienced in late November and early December.

Christmas Eve is one week away. Will we have a brown Christmas? The MNDNR calculates, via Paul Douglas' weather blog, that the odds are good for most of our North Country. But those probabilities are most likely based on the "Old Normal."

Coffee Talk Winter Patio

Photo by J. Harrington

We don't think anything we're giving, or getting, requires snow to be enjoyed. In fact, since there's going to be a fair amount of local travel on Christmas Day, we think a lack of snow might be just fine and we find that we're not alone. We were really surprised at the number of folks we say walking around the Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis yesterday when we visited Birchbark Books. Between what we bought for ourselves, including Robert Bly's Collected Poems, (we couldn't resist) and the knowledge that the Better Half also bought some books for us, perhaps we should be wishing for a sequence of blizzards as an excuse to just sit and read. Nah, instead we'd like to sit on the patio at Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls and drink coffee and read outside, but not when there's snow cover. Upstairs might work fine, but not if travel is treacherous to get there.

[UPDATE: Polar vortex could unleash winter wallop by January. Stay tuned!]

Ode to a Blizzard

By Tom Disch

O! wonderful for weight and whiteness!  

Ideolog whose absolutes  

Are always proven right  

By white and then  

More white and white again,  

Winning the same argument year  

After year by making the opposition  

Disappear!  

O! dear miniature of infinity with no  

End in sight and no snow-  

Flake exactly like  

Another, all  

A little different no  

Matter how many may fall,  

Just like our own DNA or the human face  

Eternal!  

O! still keep covering the street  

And sidewalks, cemeteries, even  

Our twice-shoveled drive,  

And all that is alive,  

With geometries that sleet  

Will freeze into Death's  

Impromptu vision of a heaven  

Wholly white!  

For we know who your sponsor is, whose will  

You so immensely serve,  

Whose chill is more severe  

Than any here.  

Though his name may be unspoken,  

His commandments are unbroken,  

And every monument that you erect  

Belongs to him!

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Pictures of our futures?

We're still working on what we want next year to be like and how to achieve that. Instead of more words today, we're going to share some pictures, each worth at least 1,000 words. [Quick read, longer thoughts.] Then we're off for a day of visiting and exploring in the sunshine and unseasonable warmth.

Being Good isn't just Being Less Bad

We need to study indigenous perspectives on individuals, community and earth

So we can thrive in a safe and just space

The Poet Contemplates the Nature of Reality

By Jill Bialosky

On the side of the road a deer, frozen, frigid.

Go back to your life, the voice said.

What is my life? she wondered. For months she lost

herself in work—Freud said work is as important

as love to the soul—and at night she sat with a boy,

forcing him to practice his violin, helping him recite his notes.

Then the ice thawed and the deer came to life.

She saw her jump over the fence, she saw her in the twilight,

how free she looked. She saw her eyes shiny as marbles,

as much a part of this world as the fence a worker

pounds into the earth. At night she still sat with the boy.

He’s learning “Au Claire de la Lune.”

Do you know it? He has established a relationship

with his violin. He knows that it takes practice to master it:

the accuracy of each note, to wrestle his feelings to the listener.

But he’s impatient. Sometimes what he hears and feels

are not always the same. Again, the poet says.

She knows if he tries to silence his fervor, he might not ever know

who he is. The poet contemplates whether a deer can dream.

Rich blood-red berries on a branch, pachysandra in the garden.

A soft warm bed in the leaves.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.