The second day of snow falls as the afternoon light lowers into a Friday night with a city closed down. This morning there was a break, and I went out to sweep in front of my doorway. The little junkos, sparrows and towhees come looking. I scour my cupboards to find something for them, these valiant little beings in a cold world. I throw poppy seeds from summer flowers and soy flower. It takes them a few hours to find the spot, but as the day wears on more and more arrive.
I have firewood, and my warm space inside. I look out the windows at the second blizzard. The air is in white-out form, reminiscent of the white-out on the summit of Mt. Hood many years ago, when I climbed it with the man I loved. We scaled the mountain for his 23rd birthday and camped on the summit for 2 nights. He would be 60 this year if he were alive.
The snow piles up, and I make soup. The beans and corn carry me back to summer harvest. The season of warm air, the time of gathering garlic to dry, shucking the beans, picking corn, making tomato sauce. It seems like another world from this white mountain tonight.
There is an acceptance of being stuck here, of having the usual diversions cancelled. Suddenly the time is only now, this moment with the birdies and the the soup simmering over the woodstove. In only one day I celebrate a birthday, my 58th. I don't remember ever having a snowstorm to mark my birthday. Some years it has even been sunny. Mother nature has her way. This pleases me. It gives everyone the little reminder: our world is not our world, it belongs to the cosmos, and we belong to it.
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