February 16, 2025
Remember the photo of my walkway from yesterday?  It's amazing what a difference a day makes. 



 

Extremely difficult to decide what the stuff falling from the sky was.  And as soon as I'd make up my mind it would change.  So I watered the indoor plants and reveled in their colors. 

At first it just felt like a lot of snow had fallen last night.  


But nothing got deeper and if anything the cars had less snow on them.  There was no sign of ice sticking to the trees in Greenfield as long as there was sunlight.  Now it has been dark for an hour and half and the rain/sleet has turned to sleet/snow.  The wind will pick up.  Friends are already reporting power outages in New York.  I will just keep my fingers crossed that all will be fine.





There was no contrast all day.  The colors all remained on the same plain. I wrestled with not falling into despondency, I think.  I just feel terrible dread moving into the corners of my mind.   And I worked hard all day at not using food to fight it off.  


I'm leaving with a poem I wrote last summer while I was trying to create an intentional meditation routine.  I wrote this at the rookery claiming what was in front of me.  I know that I have to redo this routine again.  I need to design and implement breathing, stretching, and removing thought from my mind for a time each day.  My nervous system seems to be aging faster than any other part of me and I have to figure out how to calm it down.  I need to breathe.  

An Hour To

 

breath in the earth

to listen to her heart beat.

 

An hour to

exhale the edgy

nervous twitching

of the day’s buildup.

 

An hour to

listen to her breath

smell her floor

soil, leaves.

 

An hour

 

to listen to the stillness.

to the penetrating yellow throated vireo

the excited trill of Kingfisher

a sudden honk of the Canada Goose.

 

And above her

clouds meander

in clumps or scattered

loneliness.

 

An hour

to wonder if

or when.

 

To watch

a silent deer graze

a grey squirrel move along

a beaver swim seamlessly.

 

Wood ducks appear inconsequential.

There’s that goose’s honk again

Heron stalks frogs.

They’ve been doing it

since before the time of man.

 

Hello Kingfisher.

 


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