Tag: nature

Over the Mountain

Relying on a GPS is not always a good idea as I found this week on my way back from a meeting in upstate New York. I had opted for the ‘avoid major highway’ option and found myself turning down dubious streets in Peekskill.  Next I was driving up, up, up for miles (3) in what I knew was the wrong direction. I crept along on hairpin turns against walls of rock, rushes of water pouring down onto the road that twisted ahead into the clouds ahead of me.  Mist rose Shining-like from the all-too-close edge of the road.  How do people do this through the icy days of winter? Cars sped towards me and I knew whoever was behind me was cursing my little Subaru as I crawled along, terrified.

Finally, down, down, down on the other side, tapping my brake, the road opened up and I saw a river and a narrow bridge. Across the river felt like the only option to get me going south in the right direction.  The GPS was more than willing to accommodate, directing me across the bridge, down the road and to the right smack into Bear Mountain State Park on 5:45 PM on a dreary, Tuesday night.  Frightening still, but I was relieved to be on level ground again, the risk of hurtling off a cliff, gone.

The road led me into the woodsy park where I was happy to see a State Trooper’s car. I wanted to be going in the right direction home but, heart still beating, I hoped that would not entail going back over the mountain.  No such luck. I was on the wrong side of the Hudson and the way back to where I needed to be was over the bridge and up, up, up – down, down, down.  “Drive safely” he said. It wasn’t so bad the second time round – I loosened my grip on the steering wheel and sang Beatles songs at the top of my lungs.  It felt  familiar as if I knew this road. Still a challenge, but I could handle it.

An hour later, after a few more unintended visits to towns I could have missed (Ossining – home of Sing Sing prison), I got onto the major roads going in  the right direction. I never felt so happy to crawl along I-95 in rush hour traffic.

Saving Daylight

Still trying to catch up from saving (losing?) that daylight hour and am slow to pull myself out of bed. The dark morning is hard but the extra evening light is worth it. Yesterday (Saturday), I worked for a few hours hosting the lovely author and chef Leticia Moreinos Schwartz with her new book The Brazilian Kitchen: 100 Classic and Contemporary Recipes for the Home Cook – a beautiful cookbook I had to buy myself after salivating over the photos and recipes like Red Pepper and Brazil Nut Pesto or Avocado Creme Brulee. Yum.  And the little sweet treats she brought for customers to taste – Brigadeiros – were scrumptious.  Food and good people – I was able to forget that it was a beautiful, first day of spring and I was inside.  And there was plenty of time in the remaining afternoon and evening to work in the garden.

When I got home, we leveled a Rose O Sharon shrub hovering over the corner of my vegetable garden for too many years.  I am loathe to cut down trees and shrubs where the birds might hang out. Not yesterday.  Without sentiment, we brought it down, opening up that corner  that has always become overgrown, blocking the sun from my tomato plants.  What bugged me most about this shrub was the shoots that spring up all around it – a flower garden next to the garage, the corner behind that we have been trying with little success to claim from the weeds and determined raspberry shoots.  Hundreds of little twigs that are Rose O Sharon offspring – they are poking out already, some tenaciously stuck in there, resisting my yanks. We worked for hours into the evening, the sky turning a deeper blue to dark with a sliver smile of moon up above. Ah, spring.

Spring

Daffodils poke their yellow heads out from under wooden steps added to the front porch last summer.  I thought I moved all plants and bulbs before construction but obviously missed these guys. Amazing that hidden though they are, they manage to get what they need to still bloom gloriously. I’ll try and remember to crawl under there this autumn and move them to another spot.

So much damage was done by the crazy storm last week that the schools in my city never opened. Yesterday, as I drove my daughter to and fro, the streets were full of kids – their tiny t-shirts and shorts, flip flops – already retrieved from their summer clothes stash, walking in groups, filling the playgrounds, on bicycles, skateboards. Did so many kids always live here or am I just seeing them now because I have one?  I pay more attention to children closest to my child’s age – so now the world seems full of high school freshman – other age groups fade into the background. I don’t always like what I see and remember being almost 15 and feel oh-so lucky (so far!) with my beautiful girl.

Pansies!

Garden centers are selling pansies. Out of all the flowers in the world, pansies are not particularly ‘lookers’. Their blooms are small, like silly little comic-faces and they get scraggly too fast (I know: you’re supposed to pinch them back) and they have no scent.  Still, I will pick up a few plants and pop them into the window box outside my kitchen window, and even if it snows again, these brave blossoms will reassure me that spring is almost here.

March is always a teasing month.  After some stunning, cloudless, warm days, yesterday and today are cold and rainy (but not snowing!) today with winds that keep the metal chimes left hanging on the porch since summer, furiously tinging away. Yesterday, the neighborhood hawk went swooping so low across the sky,  I was able to see him shifting his red tail, catching the wind steering him to a a distant tree. I say ‘he’ because upon landing, he  hopped onto the back of another hawk.  Mating hawks in the neighborhood – exciting. Watch out squirrels!

Yesterday we spent the day cleaning up outside, working in our shirt sleeves, pausing to drink tea and eat lunch in the sun.  Glorious!  Four crocus in bloom – a set of purple on one side of the garden and yellow on the other.  By the time the sun retreated below the tree line, the yellow ones had tightened up into torpedos against the cold of night. There is a lot of work to be done – we beat a quick retreat indoors from winter. Broken birdhouses, flower pots, garden furniture and tools, half-done projects are strewn about, abandoned to the winter elements.

Yesterday, we raked leaves – a job we do not do in the autumn, preferring to mow them up into shreds for mulch. At least that’s our reasoning. But there are bags worth of leaves out there still, and my compost pile is full.  We cut back the butterfly bushes to  stubs and made trips to the dump. Our neighbors do this before winter sets in, but by the end of summer, we preferred to spend our free time kayaking and then, we just lost heart.  Closing down our favorite season makes us sad.  Now, fired up for spring just around the corner and glad to be in the sun, we attack these tasks with joy.

Also in the spirit of clean-up, I am back to my book for rewrites based on the good advice of a venerable agent. It’s been months since I’ve immersed myself in this story – my story – and while I feel inspired to make it stronger, I am also dragging my feet, reluctant to recollect those dark days again, like a return to winter. Perhaps I can pretend I am revising fiction – but then – what a different story I would tell.

Winter’s End

The last week of this short, cold and snowy month is here, and with it, welcome signs of spring. The sun’s pace seems to have slowed as it slips across the sky, lingering a little longer in warm patches throughout the house.  The dog follows the light, curling into the heat and I try and make it up into the bedroom to read by the last glow, mellowing into reds and finally, blues of dusk-to-night. Garden catalogues are stacked and two cherry trees ordered.  Yesterday, the snow mostly melted, we walked the yard, assessing what needs to be done.  There will be at least another snow, or maybe more – but we are on the right side of winter – the final leg – so I can bear it.  The branch tips are heavy with buds and the birds seem to be singing different songs and for a few hours each day, I forget about the cold night still ahead.

Snow Day

A welcome pause.  If I close my eyes and listen, it is as if I live in the country surrounded by woods. All I hear (besides the dripping sink!) is the whoosh of wind through the trees. The usual drone of traffic from the nearby highway is muted by snow – already 6 inches deep and falling so fast that the plows can’t keep up. Nothing to do but stay inside, read, write, cook, dream. Maybe the laundry.  There is no urgency and it feels like a real vacation day. And outside, everything is beautiful.

There are things I need to do – like sort my tax papers out for next week’s appointment with my tax wizard. There are things I should do like sort out messy closets, but my loves are out of the house – and here in this relative silence, alone, (sweet because it’s rare) I feel motivated to do none of the above.  I miss working on my book but feel in a strange hiatus as I wait with fingers crossed, for a response from the agent who has agreed to consider it.  I do not feel ready to move on to the next thing – for one, there is no obsession (yet) to tell a story – not like there was with Light Between Shadows, but also because, I am (hopefully) imagining feedback and suggestions from agents and editors that will have me back to the drawing board.  I wait and try enjoy this limbo, like a snow day.

Here is what I will cook today:

Thinly sliced beets tossed lightly in olive oil and sea salt and roasted until they are crispy.

Roasted leeks, onions, garlic, garlic, and more garlic, and potatoes into a pot with chicken stock with lots of fresh ginger. Half of it pureed with a handful of frozen spinach. Yum.

Learning to Love Winter

Well, love is probably a stretch, but I am trying to improve my seasonal attitude. Just now, forced out into the morning cold by my dog’s baleful eyes and desperate door-scratching, I shivered along the street and tried to think of things I love about winter. The heat and glow of the fireplace, flannel sheets, the fragrance from my Jasmine plants, sleeping…  But these are indoor pleasures, more about hiding from these dark, cold days. To really love winter, I must move beyond my inclination to hibernate.

I want to find some joy out here in this frozen world, I think.  Searching our quiet street as Tetley pulls me farther away from the warmth of our house, I notice how blue the sky looks and how good it feels to fill my lungs with cold, fresh air.  I see the birds flitting about, their markings more vivid against the muted hues of the brush and snow covered ground. Just then, as if campaigning for a spot on my mental list, a hawk announced it’s presence, high up in the trees in the small wood by my house.  Magnificently, it arched it’s wings, flipped it’s broad tail and flew across the sky just above me and I feel – joy.  I always bemoan  the months of the scraggy, sepia landscape, and long for the lush greens – but what am I missing?  Today I will bundle up and take a long walk and look a little closer at everything.

The Promise of Brighter Days

Snow is virtually gone – washed by the past few rainy days.  At the end of the driveway on a sloping bit of land, the strawberry plants I transplanted out of the vegetable garden last summer, are a stunning green against the wet brown leaves and earth around them. In fact, the plants seem to have multiplied under the icy cover of the past two weeks. I let myself be thrilled by these crazy promises of spring – although it is not yet January and there will be plenty of snow and frigid days ahead. Technically, winter has just begun. Still, this glimpse of green and the pile of seed catalogues on my table feel like harbingers of spring.

This is partly how I navigated through some bleak days in my life: years of my husband’s addiction, his suicide, my bout with breast cancer.  Although there were times it was difficult to see the light, I always could imagine brighter days lay ahead. Nature is the key for me.  Throughout the seasons, there is always comfort to be found in the natural world. Planting bulbs, for example.  Placing the parchment skin covered bulbs into the cool autumn earth was an act of hope. Winters of the world or of the soul can feel long and dark but the bulbs helped me to believe that life would get better: a faith rewarded each spring as the crocus, daffodils, tulips and hyacinths emerge from the still-cold earth.

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