The Mint Patch Monologue

I am under the winter spell, as much as I swore to avoid it this year. It seems today when I can adventure outside, how late I can sleep in, and what ends up on my plate. I am not working with winter, I am trying to survive it. The bitter cold has found its way into my bones, and they ache with longing for a warm breeze through my wet hair. The wind has taken the breath from my lungs and left me gasping for anything that can return my spark. I remind myself that a day like today is only good for caramelizing onions, and hiding. I look into the eyes of those around me and notice they too are taking a beating from the season, everyone looks heavy, and weak. Tonight, the forecast warns of temperatures as low as 10 degrees. There is this presence in my lower back, something that feels like a boulder, wedging itself deep against my spine, forcing my ribs to slump over and my shoulders to round. Even my blankets feel tired and worn through, the folding and the unfolding ages a quilt past its soft stage as it thins. Just like aging skin, something that old can tear easily and must be considered delicate now. My spirit is brittle like the trees that drop their branches, they shatter against the pavement with whipping sounds that are startling and remind me of pain. I say all of this to remind you that the struggle is collective. As much as we may try to avoid the punch of January, to outsmart it or to conquer it, our bodies seem to power down to conserve. We do have 2 choices, I believe. The first choice is to honor the season with prioritizing rest, to sway in the benefits of surrender, to trust in the process of hibernation, to keep its ancient secrets revealed to you in the dark. Intention for these days will wave your lack for productivity, and your mission for stillness and quiet will honor you in return. The second choice is to rebel, to adorn yourself in fur and jewels and paint the bars and theaters with your finest efforts in resistance. Whatever that quest means for you, a chance to look old man winter in the face and say to him “not now sir, I will not be moved against my plot for today.” If you only muster the courage to battle the cold until YOU decide it’s time to shiver, stand up to that little voice that says to run inside and instead remind yourself you are stronger than the wind. Our ancestors instilled in us a stubbornness to the elements, they had little choice in order to survive but we have the luxuries of modern comforts. Maybe we could avenge their efforts by channeling the spirits of those who had to endure an unforgiving winter by confronting it ourselves. Maybe a portal to the past would open, and our bodies could take on the grit of those who were once on the Oregon trail. We can honor nature, but we can also challenge it. The freedom to choose between rest and resistance is a lucky endeavor, whatever we choose we must only avoid fighting it. The bleak and bitter January is inevitable but never permanent. Soon the color shall run back into our complexion as the frost melts and waters run again. Until then, hold steady mate.

Thank you for reading and as always please reach out, I DO love to chat!

readnwrite11@gmail.com

This morning, I pushed back the curtains and revealed a snowy day. Because the dawn had barely pierced the horizon, the 7am light against the snow shone dark blue, an indigo glow. The lamp I sat beside filled the room with the warmest orange any artificial bulb could make besides the sun itself. My day began surrounded by vivid colors. I could hear cars struggling to climb the hill, and I remarked to myself, “Another trial for our leaning fence.” The contrasts have changed for good this far into the calendar year, the temperatures have traded places between indoors and outside, our skin is burdened to adapt, and our morning routines take much longer. This is something only some of us experience, and why others become “snow-birds.” It might feel unnatural to me to sunbathe in December or to decorate a palm tree for Christmas. One year, Chris and I escaped to Las Vegas for the holidays, and as the sun shone on my bare skin and the dry desert air entered my lungs I longed for a little smokey cabin on a hillside. We did enjoy the change of tradition that year, but I also learned about my undeniable love for the woods.

Once I wrestled into boots and overalls I took my walk, carefully, too old for broken bones. I picked up a nice pace once I felt solid traction beneath my feet and was off, exploring neighborhood animal tracks. I spotted deer tracks first, easy to identify. Their footprints land in such a straight line, the city could hire them to walk through paint and mark curbs if only they would take direction. I saw little bird print shuffles, maybe a red breasted robin had hopped along the path before I arrived. My own feet get cold under wool socks and leather boots but humans don’t use countercurrent heat exchange, something I learned about today after wondering for long enough. Birds’ ability to keep their feet from freezing comes because their veins and arteries are close enough together to transfer heat back and forth, a physiological adaptation. Nature has an intelligence hiding right beneath our noses.

Another scientific occurrence about a snowy morning is the silence, my favorite. According to The Weather Channel, the intricate design of snowflakes catch sound waves, dampening sound before they reach the ear, it’s a wonderful function of an intact and freshly fallen snowflake. After a few hours of melting and compacting, its dampening effect becomes weak, but there is nothing quite like what I call the “snow peace.”

On snow days when I was a child, my mother used to take the phone off the hook to keep my dad from getting called out to work salting and scraping roads. We would pick up a giant order of Pizza Hut cheese sticks, and then make snow cream. Now days, I have coffee in my own house and wonder what the next (hopefully) 40 years will be like. I find company among the birds and the white- tailed deer. My wistful affection for the past stings like fingers left out in the cold, but soon melts away like the little Campbell’s soup boy, coming inside after playing in the snow. The mess left on linoleum from melted snow is too the mess left in my heart after after a moment reminiscing. But puddles can be mopped up with a tiny bit of effort, and then there’s that old saying about spilled milk.

I hope your snow days are filled with sticky hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, and I hope your puddles stay small. None of us can escape the ever changing scenery of our snow days, but we can notice their beauty forever.

Thank you for reading, and as always drop me a line, I DO love to chat!

readnwrite11@gmail.com