Mandarin tree, early January.It's the dead of winter and yet the day is mild, clear and bright. A warmish breeze gently rattles the last of the leaves in the gutters and all my cozy hearth tendencies are confused and in a muddle. A big part of me still wants to crank up the oven and fill it with loaves of bread and casseroles and clutter the stovetop with slow simmering stews and sauces even as I throw open the windows and hunt for my sunglasses. Instead of a day spent huddled in blanket by the stove, reading dense and difficult novels while stirring the polenta, it looks like I'll be packing cold sandwiches and tangerines and taking a walk in the park. Without a jacket. In January.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's just interesting to see how deep into winter-mode I've gone and despite the beauty of the day, how difficult it is to pull myself away. I appreciate and desperately need my burrowing-in time right now, especially after all the glitter and clamor of the holidays. I like the thin, pale days of January when the silence and stillness really settles in. I like those dense and difficult novels and wooly sweaters and stews enriched with mushrooms and bacon fat. I crave cold, rainy days where I have to stay home, steaming up the kitchen window with simmering stocks and roasted roots. I want to stop all the running around and just hunker down for a while.
But the lure of a bright sunny day is impossible to ignore and as someone who works from home, it's doubly important for me to get out into some fresh air now and then. So it's roast turkey sandwiches with spicy arugula and cumberland mayo (garlic and currant jam mixed into Hellman's) shoved into a pack, followed by a wedge of cheddar, some almonds and tangerines, and the last of the Christmas cookies. It's hot black tea brewed into a thermos, splashed with milk and sealed up tight. Then it's rooting out the walking boots from the cupboard and pulling on a few layers of light clothing. Sunglasses, a thin novel, some music. Notebook, pen, a few dollars in my pocket and then out the door and into the bright, bright sunshiny day.
I cross the street and I pass beneath a mandarin orange tree, which is still bearing fruit even while new blossoms are starting to pop out. They release a scent, powerfully sweet, that feel ticklish and a little thrilling. A neighbor has left a crate of free books on her front porch worthy of pawing through and further down the hill I run into an old friend, someone I haven't seen in a while, and we pause for a nice chat.
Maybe this getting out isn't so bad after all.
Related: Weekend Meditation: Broken
(Image: Dana Velden)
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Ah the thrill of something unexpected. The difficulty for me is shutting off that part of my brain that takes these warm winter days and turns them into foreboding climate change problems. It isn't so loud I can't get out, but it's there in the undercurrent waiting for a lull in the conversation.
You expressed so well what I experience. While working we had those cold quiet gray days, filled with just the rare bird call and occasional floating leaf. Silvery light filled my apartment. Oh, the joy of books, teas, blankets, soups, naps. Now it's my day off- 76 degrees. Now what?
Last year at this time I was running out of places to put the snow I shoveled off of my driveway. Our backyard was a warren of snow-paths that my little boy couldn't even see over! So our bare yard and warm air, although strange, seem just fine to me.
I am loving this weather. I keep running into people that are freaked out by the warm temps and lack of rain. I take it as mother earth saying come out and play and enjoy my beauty. Why do things always have to be a certain way? Seasons can change a bit and we should just accept it and go with the flow a bit more instead of struggling to understand why it's happening. I took my kids to the pool yesterday (an outside pool) and we swam. It was 75 degrees and I felt like I was on vacation. Sitting in the warm sun reading a book instead of reading in the house in front of the fire. It was a different concept, but a wonderful one.
I opened my windows and cleaned while the fresh air poured in! I struggle through the cold, gray, damp winter days, and yesterday felt like such a blessing.
Gardening is my favorite thing to do, because I can't stand gardening in the heat of Summer, so I make great use of the cool Fall days and the warmer Winter and Spring days to catch up on my gardening. I learned that as long as I don't compact the soil it's a great time to get the work done. In Summer you just won't find me gardening, I'm sitting in the shade with my nose in a book and a lemonade in hand. Otherwise on warm Winter days I go walking in the state park nearby or along the waterfront (bay or ocean).
i cope with a warm(ish) sunny day in winter by going for a walk in my sandals, documenting the atrocities with my camera. That's what I did a couple weekends ago when I saw my first ever brown christmas up here in minnesota.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40964542@N08/sets/72157628579085617/
Wow,..:) luv the way u write,..
What a lovely meditation....thank you.
@Jackie@MarinMamaCooks-what a lovely follow up to an equally lovely post. Living in Northern California I too am experiencing this 'unseasonal' weather and wishing for something more akin to the month of January but both of these posts have reminded me to relish in the here and now.
'Love this; we got the snow we wanted while visiting family for the holidays and then drove out of the cold + white, into bright + comfortable... I would love to have a kitchen window to open while I cook and clean, but we're making the best of the apartment we live in for now (we dream of a home with windows, windows, windows!)... I'll be simmering a veggie-packed pot of chili on the stove this afternoon and dreaming of coming in to enjoy a bowl after running around in the snow...thanks for this much-needed meditation.
I won't complain about the sunshine, but the weather is freaking me out. Perennials and fruit trees are starting to leaf out and bud early and will be destroyed or severely damaged if winter weather finally kicks in. This does not bode well for harvest. Not that I want the five feet of snow and blizzards we had this time last year, but to go from that to this in just one year is unnerving. I hope this kind of weather doesn't become the "new normal."
Here in Philly, our quince bush is blossoming. Weird....