Glorious Day

What a glorious day. Here I sit, outside in my back yard, enjoying clear skies, a warm, 72 degree breeze and the sun on my back. It is Mother Nature's deception because I know an arctic front is back there, behind me, moving in within the next thirty-six hours.  I won't enjoy another day like this for at least two weeks, maybe longer. So I will glory in today.

I am in my "mobile writing" mode. This means my barefoot self and all my nifty technological gadgets are parked in a chair outside on the patio. I still find it hard to believe this is possible. I have an iPad which wirelessly connects to the network inside my house and a Bluetooth keyboard which wirelessly connects to my iPad so I can type with all my fingers on the keys. Just how spoiled am I?

The only hitch is that Blogger will not operate in compose mode on my iPad. In English, this means I have to type this text into another program, then cut and paste it into Blogger. There is an update I can download that will eliminate this step, but that would mean I would have to go inside, connect to my desktop computer and figure out how to do it. My brain would totally go into "business" mode and I would lose the feelings that I am experiencing outside. So I will worry about technology later.

Even the mild winter we have here in Texas has taken its toll on the back yard. The grass is brown and, except for the live oaks, the tress are bare. My herb garden still shows signs of life and there is a dormant crop of sweet pea waiting for spring to signal that it is time to shoot up and bloom. I love this old-fashioned flower. My grandmother always grew sweet pea on the fence surrounding her chicken yard. Every spring day was filled with their unmistakable fragrance (the flowers, not the chickens,) both inside and outside, so just a whiff takes me back there. They don't like the heat so as soon as summer begins to encroach, they are done. That is why you have to plant them in the fall to get their roots established before it gets cold. Unless you have a really cold winter with snow or ice, they will not freeze but just go dormant at about eight to ten inches in height. Then when the warm sun comes, they grow rapidly and bloom very early, a welcome sight after winter. 

If you've been keeping up, you may realize that this talk about the coming storm seems in conflict with my views on "Winter Envy." But there I concluded that my adult self doesn't really like the cold and snow too much; it is my child self that wants to sled down the hill and make snow men. But today my adult self is happy and content. I can overlook the brown leaves everywhere, including those lying in rain puddles that have collected in the pool cover, producing some kind of primordial ooze. Even those look rather nice today in the sunshine. 

When I close my eyes, lean my head back and listen, this is what I hear: the flapping of the plastic door of the greenhouse behind me; the music produced by three sets of wind chimes in my "bling tree;" a motorcycle roaring down Ranch Road 12; the hum of the pool equipment, purifying the unseen water beneath the cover; the crunch of the leaves beneath my dogs' paws as they race across the yard on squirrel patrol -- again; dogs barking in the distance; birds conversing with each other -- animal voices, but no people voices anywhere. 

The Bling Tree

The back door is open, pulling some fresh air into the house and bringing back with it the smell of the beef short ribs in red wine that are slowly braising in the oven. That will be a fitting end to this glorious day. I wish you could join me.

Winter Envy

I have lived in Texas all my life. Most of the time it is wonderful here, particularly in the Hill Country, but it is hot. Summer heat is a burden all Texans endure and the ability to do so becomes part of our general psyche. It's what makes us "tough." It's also what makes us flee every winter to ski resorts and the other destinations "up north." I like to call it winter envy.

When I started school in the mid-60's, our textbooks were the Ginn Basic Readers. We didn't have Dick and Jane; we had Tom, Betty, Susan and Nan. We lived on the Gulf Coast and never, ever saw snow. The children in our readers made snowmen, rode sleds, skated and had wonderful fun every winter while we sang, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" as if it were a prayer. Each year when the Sears Christmas catalog arrived I would eagerly find the pages with sleds, red sleds in particular, and beg my mother for one. At first she would try to explain to me that you had to have snow to use a sled and we didn't get snow where we lived. I knew this was true, but somehow thought that if I had a sled, it would snow and I would have winter fun like the kids in the readers.

From On Cherry Street, Ginn Basic Readers, 1957

I wanted to build snowmen, big shiny white snowmen like Frosty. On the one day it snowed at home during my school days, we rushed outside, eager to throw snowballs and build our village people. My dreams were finally coming true, even if I didn't have a sled. Of course, when I say it snowed, I am using the term loosely. There was enough snow to cover the ground, barely, and our snowman was full of leaves and twigs. Somehow it just didn't match up.

From On Cherry Street, Ginn Basic Readers, 1957

Since those days I have learned that the reality of winter is not nearly as fun as the Ginn Readers made it seem. It is really cold, like "I could die out here," cold. Snow makes driving dangerous and deadly, and it gets gray and ugly after it has been on the streets a day or two. When I go skiing I keep a constant dull headache from the altitude, and that's not fun either. I see the forecast for the huge storm that is about to hit the northeast, paralyzing all traffic and endangering thousands of lives and think that maybe the relatively balmy 40 degrees outside is fortunate, even if there is no snow. This is my adult self looking at winter.

But deep inside, my child self still has winter envy. The more I think about it, the more I believe that what I want is for winter to be like it was for the children in the readers. I want to be a child in that book. 

Susan laughed and laughed.

"What a funny old snowman!" she said.

"See his cowboy hat go up and down.

Come and look, Mother!"

Just then Tom jumped up.

"It is Tom," said Susan.

"Tom was back of Mr. Snowman all the time."

Mother laughed with the children.

They had a happy time in the snow.

From On Cherry Street, Ginn Basic Readers, 1957