Notes from a Snowy Tuesday

    It's been snowing since last night. So far, maybe three inches covers the ground, enough to touch things up and make driving a growth experience. The open fields surrounding the house are the wind's sand tray, allowing it to push and pat the snow into swirls and against the back door. The wind also blows the snow over the road, laughing in the face of the road crew's hard work.
    I made sweet potato muffins for breakfast. I had mine with a smear of marmalade, some good stuff imported from the UK. Thick cut, a little bittersweet. Perfect.
   Orion's been out three times to tend to personal business and eat some snow.
  The Spouse is working from home, praise be to modern technology. He's in his space. I'm in mine. We have a movie to watch, enough tea and coffee and chocolate to see us through until the roads are rendered passible.
   Hopefully, we won't lose power. It gets flukey out here. It goes out for no discernible reason more often than not. It's gone out on days when no wind, no rain, no air conditioning drains it. As if it merely wants to grab coffee.
    That sounds good about now.

2:30 A.M. Thoughts

   The problem is not with the vivid dreams  or with Orion or The Spouse making unusual sounds in their sleep. The problem is with getting back to sleep after the images or noises fade. Granted that it's disconcerting to feel that your subconscious is directed by Terry Gilliam, who created the cartoons that did their level best to give coherent transitions to "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and unpleasant to be dragged  by the arms into consciousness in the wee-est hours of the night. However, it's the vortex of thoughts that add fuel to the fire.
    Take this morning, please. After a dream about an argument with a natural pet care expert, I snapped awake, and hoped that it was closer to 5:30. Nope. Only 2:30. Ok, go to the john, try to go back to sleep. Did I turn my cell phone off? Oh, yeah, I'd never turned it on. I likely need a new battery; it's been showing signs that  it may be dying. The song about the internet being made of cats that I saw on YouTube, oh great, that's starting. Ok, try an affirmation. No. Try a visualization. No, not the one with Patrick Stewart and the strawberries. Breathe, and try the white light coming up through the feet and out through the crown of my head, cleansing healing and balancing while oh, great, the theme from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" started playing in my head. Crap. What if I turn over? Ouch; my back is too stiff from the dive I took on the ice last week. Other way. Good, both puppy and hubby are sleeping through this. Puppy. Orion's heart murmur's worse, but for now he's ok and he's doing well with the new supplements.
    I finally got back to sleep just before Orion came in to ask for breakfast at 6.

A Holiday I Can Live With

   

       This morning, Orion walked me in the fresh snow. It clings to the long-leaf pines at the forest preserve where we walk on days after storms due to less than optimal roads to our usual park. A silence gently embraced the silvered woods.   

    Solstice doesn't carry the emotional baggage that Christmas does. It's not been exploited commercially, and the weight of being expected to play nice with people who believe that DNA connection is an excuse to behave badly. It's a time in the quiet to think about winter aspirations, and to get busy working on them.

The extra seconds of light at the end of today remind us that it gets better from here. We certainly have storms to weather, but we are compensated by day digging in its toes just a little longer.

    Blessed Solstice, everyone.