A Good Warm Sweater

"I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn't itch."

-- Gilda Radner

Sheep 12-7-14

Sheep 12-7-14

"... it is as though the fabric were indeed 

a natural extension of the body,

or even of the soul."

-- Quentin Bell

"Let man wear the fell of the lion,

woman the fleece of the sheep."

-- William Blake

"The best time to wear a striped sweater,

is all the time."

-- Spongebob Squarepants

Good Traction

"The slippery slope was everywhere."

--Paul Russell, The Coming Storm

Boots and a banana peel in the snow 11-29-14

"I like the crunch sound of snow under my boots.

Better than stepping on knuckles."

-- Jarod Kintz, 

Seriously delirious, but not at all serious

"Life is slippery.

We all need a loving hand to hold onto."

-- H. Jackson Brown Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book

It's slippery season, when sidewalks and roads are more like skating rinks, and when walking and driving can get awfully treacherous.

There's a saying that I abide by that goes like this: "Never skimp on anything that goes between you and the ground." That means always buy good footwear, good tires, good furniture, and good mattresses.

Your body will thank you.

I've been walking a lot lately, and with the snow and ice it can get pretty dicey. That's why I have several pairs of boots with nice deep treads to keep me from sliding off the sidewalks, and with supportive uppers to protect my ankles from twisting and turning.

I went for a walk after dark last night, and my boots definitely saved my ass a couple of times.

I like to ride my bike in the winter sometimes too. But that can be really dangerous. That's why at this time of year I ditch my road bike with its skinny little tires and jump aboard Leo's mountain bike, with its fat, nubby, grippy ones.

If you enjoy walking in a winter wonderland (the activity, not the song), please tread carefully and do what you can in order to stay on your feet.

If you drive or ride in it, take care.

Check your tires. Make sure you have a good pair of boots. Hold onto someone's hand.

A Good Day For Hanging Christmas Lights

"In the right light, at the right time,

everything is extraordinary."

-- Aaron Rose

Bird nest with Christmas lights 11-24-14

"When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things -- 

not the great occasions -- give off the greatest glow of happiness."

-- Bob Hope

We had a little warm-up over the weekend, so we grabbed the opportunity to get some stuff done, including hanging the outside Christmas lights.

I'd like to say that we had an unusually early burst of Christmas spirit and goodwill, but truthfully, our motivation was more self-preservation than anything.

Hanging Christmas lights in the freezing cold is a bitch.

You can't hang those pesky little fuckers with gloves or mittens on. You have to go at it bare-handed. So if you get a warm enough day close-ish enough to Christmas, do it then and save your fingers from frostbite.

Quite honestly, it was a good day to do it. So we did it.

I must admit, though, our little house looks pretty fucking adorable. And it felt good to feel good about decorating a little bit. For the past couple of years I haven't given a rat's ass about Christmas, period. As for Christmas decorations -- Fuggedaboutit. 

Of course, our strands of lights were all tangled and not lighting up right. So we decided to start fresh. We even strayed away from the typical tiny white twinkle lights and went retro.

I rode my bike over to our local ACE Hardware and bought two strings of lights that remind me of the big old glass-bulb kind from my childhood.

Except, unlike the flesh-blistering glass bulbs of yore, these lights are plastic and cool to the touch and won't burn anyone's fingers. They also won't burn down the house.

They look pretty cool too. Looking at them outside makes me feel happy inside.

A Good Snug House

"We felt very nice and snug,

the more so since it was 

so chilly out of doors."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Monopoly house 11-21-14

"Some people talk of morality, and some of religion,

but give me a snug little property."

-- Maria Edgeworth

"Oh, a cottage! How charming.

A little cottage is always very snug."

-- Jane Austen,  Sense and Sensibility

"From my observation, the older you get,

the more you like the word cozy."

-- Holly Goldberg Sloan, Counting by 7s

A Good Warm Hat

"My ears were nice and warm, though.

That hat I bought had earlaps in it, and I put them on --

I didn't give a damn how I looked."

-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye

Self portrait 10-22-14

"If you don't have a hat on, you lose heat through your head,

just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts."

-- Richard Ingebretsen, MD, PhD, 

"Do We Really Lose Most of Our Heat Through Our Heads," WebMD

"Girl With the Pearl Earring," Vermeer

If you have super short hair like me, then you know how unsettling it feels when winter starts creeping up your neck.

I was out doing some running around yesterday, and I hadn't worn a hat. It was super windy, and super cold, and, well, winter was starting to creep up my neck.

It was unsettling.

I stopped at the sporting goods store to buy a kettlebell, and I saw this super warm, super cozy hat.

I bought it and put it on.

It felt super good.

(P.S. Is it just me, or does this self portrait have a li'l "Girl With the Pearl Earring" vibe? Except not at all.)

Something To Keep Me From Totally Flipping My S#!T Because I'm Stuck Indoors

"To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence,

hollering, 'What's it for?'"

-- Robert Fulghum

Self portrait 4-17-14

"Human beings want to be free 

and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to stay oppressed, 

there will come a time when they say 'That's it.'

Suddenly they find themselves doing something 

that they never would have thought they would be doing,

simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face towards freedom."

-- Aung San Suu Kyi

It snowed, again and dropped into the low 20s, again.

Remember those lovely daffodils I talked about a couple of days ago? They're fucked.

After the rain beat the shit out of them, the show completely crushed them into the ground.

I tasted freedom during an all-too-brief weekend breakout, but then Winter threw me back in lockup and slammed the cell door.

I'm trapped inside looking out, again.

Yesterday I could be have used my time in solitary confinement (or as I like to think of it, "the hole") to get a jump on Spring cleaning the house -- the windows need washing, the carpets need sweeping, the furniture needs dusting, the grout needs scrubbing.

Instead, in a desperate act of survival, I spent the afternoon fighting back the crazy by making this self portrait of how I'm feeling right about now. I had to get it out of my system before I totally flipped my shit and started smashing stuff. It's a good thing, cuz I was about to start eating my own offspring.

The grout can fucking wait. I have more important things to do.

At Least I Didn't Break A Hip

"When you're on the ice, you have very little time,

you see very little, and everything happens really quick."

-- Steve Yzerman

Falling pipe cleaner figure 2-21-14

"The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement."

-- E. W. Howe

"Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk,

my first instinct is to laugh. 

But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me.

Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny."

-- Jack Handy, "Deep Thoughts, With Jack Handy"

I wish I had a cool story to explain how I slipped and fell on the ice -- that I got tripped in the Winter Olympics speed skating finals, or didn't land my 450 in the half pipe or fully rotate my quadruple salchow. Hell, I'd settle for tripping over my curling broom for Chrissakes.

But I don't have a cool story.

I was simply walking across the parking lot at the pool, and my foot slid on some ice, and I fell ass-over-teakettle and hit the ground. I dropped like a rock. Hard.

It happened so fast. I was up, and then I was down, although I did have a momentary slow-motion awareness that "this can't end well" before I hit the wet, icy pavement.

It hurt. 

The good thing is, nothing's broken.

I have a significant bruise on my hip, my wrist is extremely stiff and I have minor contusions on my arm and elbow.

I'll live.

But the judges are gonna have some major deductions.

A Glimpse Of Spring

"Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer.

The one melts, the other breaks into pieces."

-- Henry David Thoreau

Melting icicle 2-13-14

"Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away."

-- Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

I ain't stoopid.

I know there's more Winter to come.

I've lived in Ohio and Michigan my entire life, so I know that Winter always has a second act. And most likely, a third.

I know better than to get my hopes up when there's a brief intermission -- a momentary thaw. 

But that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy it when the big round thermometer nailed to our fence, basking in afternoon the sunshine, reads a balmy 40 degrees. Or when the icicles that fringe the eaves of our house in severe, jagged spikes get all round-tipped and melty. 

A tiny glimpse of Spring, no matter how fleeting, is like a little peek at the coming attractions.

But I'm a jaded Midwesterner, so I don't get too excited.

I've learned not to let my guard down. Not just yet. Not this early. 

Now's the time where I brace myself for Winter's sucker punch.

Because I know damn well that intermission goes quick. Winter is simply off freshening her makeup, spritzing her throat and taking a piss. The lobby lights are already flickering. The place will soon grow dark again and that bitch will climb back on stage.

What a diva.

Freezing A Moment In Time

"There are no moments you have frozen in amber.

It's moving, it's changing,

so appreciate what's good about right now

and be ready for what's next."

-- Michael J. Fox

Self portrait 1-30-14

"That's why we seize the moment

try to freeze it and own it,

squeeze it and hold it

Cause we consider these minutes golden

And maybe they'll admit it when we're gone

Just let our spirits live on ..."

-- Eminem, "Sing For The Moment"

"Gradually she shaped into a more fluid, resilient woman,

coming to terms with the felt capacity to

fiercely defend herself when necessary,

and to surrender in quiet ecstasy."

-- Peter A Levine

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Welcome to the first ever One Good Thing Science Day!

For today's picture I did that thing where you fling a whole cup of boiling water into very cold air and watch the water turn instantly into vapor and ice.

Science fact 1:  If you toss cold water into the air, you will get wet.

Science fact 2:  If you toss any temperature water into the average air of a mild winter, you will also get wet. 

Science fact 3:  When the air is painfully cold, and the water is boiling-ly hot, you get magic.

I mean, it's science, but ... OK, look. If you don't believe me, next time the temperature dips below zero, instead of bitching about how goddamn cold it is and how if these kids don't go back to school soon you'll flip your shit, and just boil a kettle full of hot water. 

But don't make another fucking pot of pansy-ass tea with it. 

Instead, say "Yay, it's cold! Cold enough to do the hot water thing!" Then take your kids (or someone else's, or just yourself) out in the backyard or the parking lot or wherever. Pour some of the boiling water into a cup and fling it up as high as you can over your head, and watch the magic -- er, I mean the science -- happen. It's cool as fuck, and the kids will think you're also cool as fuck because you just let them throw boiling water into the air over right their heads, and nobody got burned because the water froze instantly, vaporized right before their eyes, before whooshing away on the winter wind. Kids love that shit.

Then, when you look back on the cold harsh winter of 2014, you won't just remember how long and cold and boring it was. You'll remember how it was cold enough just long enough for you to do that thing. 

And your kids (or someone else's) won't remember how much you bitched about the cold and the school cancellations. They'll remember that moment when you made magic happen with a cup of boiling water, and how you weren't a bitch at all.

You were cool as fuck.

Shelter From The Storm

"Everybody needs a safe place."

-- Mary Oliver, Dog Songs

Shelter 1-25-14

"Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh, yeah, I'm gonna fade away."

-- The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter"

As I sit here safe and sound in my cozy home sipping a hot cup of fresh-brewed cinnamon Starbucks coffee, it's easy to forget that there's a winter storm raging just outside my window. But every now and then the howl of a fierce, frigid wind reminds me that the weather outside is very, very frightful.

It is fascinating to watch the wind. (Yes, Christina Georgina Rossetti, I can see it.) I can actually see the drifts forming as the wind swirls and loops and whorls snow across open the spaces, then bucks and changes direction just before crashing against any solid thing standing in its way. 

It's elegant and graceful, in a way -- like a dance -- beautiful from the vantage point of my sturdy, warm, solid house, underscored by the accompaniment of the furnace's steady, comforting hum.

It may sound trite or obvious to say that shelter is a good thing. Most of the time, it's one of the good things that I guess I take for granted. 

Rather than complain about being antsy, or bored, or house-bound, today I am grateful that I have a house to be bound and bored and antsy in. I don't have to tell you that not everybody is so lucky. 

If you are safe and warm today, and if you have the means, think about donating blankets or coats or food or time or money to your local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.  Don't know of one? There's a really good one in my area called Victory Kitchen that accepts monetary donations online. Click on the link and you can help someone without even leaving the comfort of your safe, warm home.

And today, that's definitely a good thing.

Be safe and take care.

Homemade Chicken Soup

"You can't eat this soup standing up, your knees buckle."

-- Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld, "The Soup Nazi"

Homemade chicken soup 1-19-14

"There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life,

but every now and then there's a ray of light

that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort

like hot soup and a soft bed."

-- Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

"Anyone who tells a lie has not pure heart,

and cannot make good soup."

-- Ludwig van Beethoven

When I was a kid, chicken soup came from a can. It was mostly mushy noodles and salty broth, with a couple of tiny bits of carrot and celery (I think) and maybe one grayish chunk of chickenish meat about the size and texture of a pencil eraser.

At our house, homemade soup happened once in a blue moon, usually made by my Dad, and was either bean (if there was a leftover ham bone from Easter) or turkey (if there was leftover turkey from Thanksgiving). His soup usually involved those foil-wrapped bouillon cubes, the first four ingredients of which are typically: salt, sugar, MSG and some kind of bad-for-you hydrogenated oil. Kind of takes the comfort out of comfort food, doesn't it?

My grandma, however, made delicious soup, with beef, and barley and colorful vegetables. She taught me how by letting me watch her do it. There was no written recipe, but her basic rules, I later learned, carried over to just about any soup I wanted to try:

1. Keep it simple. 
2. Start with good meat and homemade stock.
3. Let it cook long and slow so the flavors develop. 
4. Make extra and freeze it for those days when you don't have time to cook supper.

I make soup a lot. And I'm not too humble to admit that my soups are very delicious. I don't use recipes very often. Mostly I just wing it depending on what I have on hand. On a blustery day, a pot of soup bubbling away on the stove makes the whole house smell and feel warm and cozy. Add a loaf of crusty bread, a leafy green salad, and a bottle of wine, and, well, they don't call it comfort food for nothing.

"In January it's so nice

While slipping on the sliding ice

To sip hot chicken soup with rice

Sipping once, sipping twice

Sipping chicken soup with rice."

-- Carole King, "Chicken Soup With Rice"

A Starling in a Pear Tree

" ... even the smallest of the starlings' concerns grew in importance 

until it seemed equal to the worries of kings."

-- Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

Starling in flowering pear tree 1-10-14

"Man generally does not know enough about the cycle of life 

to mess with the biological diversity of a region without causing irreparable damage, 

the starling is an excellent case in point."

-- Nature Ali

When the cold  snap finally broke, Mother Nature released the starlings, and our front yard trees were full of them.

Starlings are not a good thing.

Starlings are nuisance birds. 

People hate starlings. 

There are entire how-to websites dedicated to eradicating as many starlings as possible. Starlings destroy crops, ruin vineyards, foul animal feed and spread diseases to livestock and other birds. They fly into jet engines and cause airplane crashes which kill people. They nest wherever they damn well please, they're noisy, they shit everywhere. They dominate other bird species. They are called "intelligent killers," the "avian menace," "ugly birds" and "vermin" whose population is growing unabated. 

There are hordes of starlings because some d-bag brought a few nesting pair to North America from Europe in 1880. 

Dipshit.

The experts say winter is the best time to rub out the starlings because that's when their populations are weakest, and it's before the spring nesting season when they git bizzy and multiply. Anything goes: traps, bb guns and other firearms, tainted bait, strangulation with your bare hands, biting off their heads. Whatever it takes to kill the little bastards.

I can think about cold-blooded murder another day. 

On this day, after a stretch of bitter cold that paralyzed the bare, frozen landscape and sent all the creatures running for cover, it was nice to see some signs of life, even if it was a bunch of goddamn starlings.  

I shot this guy with my camera from my son's bedroom window. According to the experts, I should have blown it's ugly head off. But I thought he looked pretty and peaceful perched in the flowering pear tree. So I didn't take his life. I took his picture. Which, I'll bet if you asked the starling, was a good thing.

Everybody is beautiful sometimes. 

Even goddamn fucking starlings.

Snow Days

"With luck, it might even snow for us."

-- Haruki Murakami, After Dark

Marshmallow snowman 1-9-14

"I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas:

It brings people together while time stands still ...

No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than

the glory of the day, with each other ..."

-- Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

The children in my small town were supposed to return to school on January 2.

But they've been blessed with a string of snow days that stretched their Christmas break seven extra days, making their total time off from school a full three weeks.

They went back this morning. Which is probably a good thing, because I think the mothers in my small town were fixing to rise up and storm the superintendent's home if he cancelled one more precious day. They're are all getting restless, twitchy and they have a crazed look in their eyes, the look of wild animals captured in traps, prepared to gnaw off their own legs in order to escape the cold, cruel grip of cabin fever.

But not me.

I honestly felt a little note of sorrow this morning when Leo laced up his new boots, slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed out the door. Because during the past three weeks, we were together a lot. Sure, we had our moments -- nobody wants to be with somebody all the time -- but mostly, it was really good. I didn't dread the announcement of "school cancelled tomorrow." I celebrated it. I didn't want to sully it for him, because I remember that feeling of staying up late, waiting, hoping, praying for one more day off. I remember the luxury of staying up late and sleeping in on days that were supposed to be school days. It's one of the best feelings of childhood, ranking right up there with Christmas and birthdays. I think because all three involve gifts.

If I had to write an essay about "What I Did During Winter Break," it would include all the stuff I did with my great kid, for instance:

We went to the movies, four times. 

We ate lunch together every day (I usually eat alone). I packed Leo's lunchbox every night, just in case. And then he'd just eat it at the dinner table the next day. He said it tasted better at home.

We took our cameras out in the snowy woods just to see what we could see. 

We cheered for my alma mater Michigan State in the Rose Bowl. 

The soundtrack of many days was Leo practicing, diligently, his duck and goose calls, which he got progressively better at, to the point where I barely noticed it anymore. I just figured there were ducks or geese flying overhead. The practice paid off, because I cooked some of the geese he hunted. He also figured out how to build his own goose call, which miraculously worked and sounded pretty darned convincing.

We got Leo's room cleaned and took a whole car-load of his stuff to Goodwill. 

I let him use my workroom to paint tiny little wood blocks with tiny, extremely detailed and accurate, ducks. He got lost in his art for hours. It made me glad knowing he has the keys to that happy place, that sweet escape, just like me.

Everywhere we went, Leo drove. He is on his learner's permit, and needs to accumulate the hours. And I liked having a chauffeur. It made me feel fancy. 

We made up jokes. Here's one: "If Sean Combs was an insect, what would he be?"  "Diddy Long Legs."

I felt a tug at my heart when he visited our 86-year-old neighbor, Vera, and talked with her for almost two hours because she had been home alone during the bitter cold snap and he figured she could use the company. He also took her a pork chop.

We shopped for duck and goose decoys. 

I took him shopping for new boots and to spend his Christmas gift cards to the sporting goods store, which sometimes strains my patience, but somehow wasn't stressful. Because we had time. We weren't in a hurry. We had no place else to be and nothing else to do. We were just hanging out with each other.

We started calling ourselves the Dynamic Duo. 

Thing One and Thing Two.

Make that Good Thing One and Good Thing Two.

The View From My Kitchen Window

"Winter then it its early and clear stages,

was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country,

alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light

into the arms of bare upreaching trees."

-- Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

The view from my kitchen window 1-8-14

 "Life moves pretty fast. 

If you don't stop and look around once in a while, 

you could miss it."

-- Ferris, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The winter landscape has been harsh, cold and bleak lately.

Talking about the winter weather has grown boring and mundane.
Dealing with it has grown even boring-er and more mundane-er.

I was elbows deep in a ho-hum kitchen sinkful of sudsy water, doing the mundane task of washing boring old lunch dishes, when I glanced up and out.

It was early afternoon, but a half-moon had already settled in the cloudless blue sky. The sun was reflecting off the ice coating the frozen treetops so that they glittered like jewels, like diamonds.

I left the dishes in the sink, dried my hands and bundled up -- boots, coat, hat, gloves, hood. I grabbed my camera and stomped through the heavily crusted snow of the backyard knowing I had to work fast because A.) it was -4 degrees with a -20 windchill, and B.) the sky is a fickle and elusive thing. Like rainbows and sunsets, the perfect light will leave as quickly as it came.

I got a few shots before my fingers went numb. None of them do the scene justice. But I tried.

I felt lucky, like I'd seen something private, meant just for me and the moon. It was like spotting a rare bird in the forest for just a moment before it flits away. While the rest of the world had its backs turned toward the sky, hunched against the brutal wind, giving Winter the finger, I happened to look up and Winter showed me a glimpse of her other, prettier side.

Winter wasn't the boring, harsh, cold bitch everyone was making her out to be.

In that moment, in that light, all done up in sparkles, she looked better than good. She was perfectly lovely.

It's So Cold I Can Dress Like Paul Bunyan

"Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow 

will compel me to dress like a lumberjack."

-- Gayle Forman, If I Stay

Self portrait 1-7-14

"A bitter wind, heavy with icy particles, whipped at my face,

its howling forming the high notes of a symphony ...

-- Theophile Gautier, Hashish, Wine, Opium

"The cold cut like a many bladed knife."

-- Israel Zangwill, The Big Bow Mystery

With sub-zero temperatures and an even sub-er zero-er windchill, fashion goes right out the window, like the heat when someone leaves a door open and what are you trying to do, heat the whole neighborhood?! 

Sorry, I just turned into my dad for a second.

I'm not all that fashionable to begin with, but in the kind of cold snap we are having, I don't need an excuse to dress like a lumberjack. I don't care if all those layers make me look big and bulky, either. The more the merrier. And high-tech micro fiber gear doesn't cut it. Bring on the waffle-weave, the heavy flannel, the wool socks, hats and boots. Something about the weight and warmth of it all feels comforting and protective.

Another bonus of bundling up is that you can be kind of incognito. You can get groceries, gas up the car, whatever, and nobody will recognize you. 

If I could grow a real beard, I totally would right now.

But I can't, which, if you ask my husband, is probably a good thing.

Timbrrrrrr!

Exploring Cemeteries for Statues

"The cemetery is an open space among the ruins,

covered in winter with violets and daisies.

It might make one in love with death,

to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place."

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais

Cemetery statue, Sandusky, Ohio 1-5-13

"It was a pointed irony that the very best view of the town could be had 

from the cemetery hill, where high, thick walls surrounded 

a collection of tombstones like wedding cakes,

 frosted with white angels and iced with ribbons and scrolls, 

one against another, toppling, shining cold."

-- Ray Bradbury, "The Candy Skull"

I remember when I was a little kid, that whenever our school bus passed a cemetery, we all held our breath. According to elementary school lore, if you didn't hold your breath going past a cemetery, you'd die.

Some say you should hold your breath when passing a cemetery so that you don't inhale the spirits of the dead. Another twist is that if you don't hold your breath, the cemetery spirits will steal it from you as you pass by. Which means you'd die. So we've come full circle.

When I realized that I could run ahead on a sidewalk and stomp on all the cracks without breaking my mother's back, I also realized that most superstitions are baloney.

My mother's back is fine, and I don't hold my breath past cemeteries anymore. Instead, I usually look hard across their topography, scanning for statues standing up taller than the other monuments. Quite often, I drive right between the gates and breathe freely and deeply while I have a look around.

I have a thing for cemetery statues. I don't know what it is. The rest of the graves and monuments don't excite me all that much and I don't have a weird obsession with death. But the statues get me every time. Not the same old, same old garden variety cherubs or Virgin Mary's that people buy at Home Depot or wherever. I'm talking about big statues. Old statues. The ones that tower over everything else like they're standing sentinel over whoever is buried beneath them, and everyone else in the yard as well.

Sometimes my son Sam drives me on my cemetery scouting missions. I like this because he can man the wheel while I focus all of my attention on looking. He is a good sport about it, and sits in the driver's seat sipping his Starbucks venti-blah-blah-decaf-blah-blah-no-whip-blah-blah-latte, texting and listening to the radio while I jump in and out of the car to take pictures.

I had to climb a snow-covered hill to get to this statue. I felt like a little kid scrambling up a sledding slope. The air was bracingly cold, the trees stripped to their bare bones, like filigree against an impossibly blue winter sky. My fingers went numb and I got covered in snow up to my knees as I stumbled back down the hill in long, loping strides, holding my camera above my head to keep it out of the snow. 

When I got back to the car, I was definitely a little breathless -- but not because the cemetery spirits stole anything from me. Breathless because I'm 46 and just climbed up and down a snowy hill in 20-degree weather. Breathless because I was baldly rejecting superstition and inhaling lungful after lungful of sharp, cold cemetery air. 

Breathless because it's good thing to be alive.