Yesterday, there were 43 icicles hanging over my kitchen window.  Imagine a long rectangle that opens like a porthole–that’s my kitchen window.  Today, there are twenty-one, all shapes and sizes.  If I felt glacial, I could watch them drip as the sun warms up.  Why is that only appealing with a cup of coffee in my hand?  Annie Dillard would watch with pen in hand.

There is the compost truck. We have compost, recycle and garbage, but it seems the compost only gets collected every other week.  Every week would make sense.  I remember in New Jersey how one day, all the houses on my parents’ street received large  bright bee pollen yellow recycling containers.  They looked other-wordly, like space containers for nuclear waste.  They’ve yet to incorporate composting, but I know many compost in their yards.  Growing up with Ranger Rick’s Nature Magazines, which I didn’t have the heart to ever stop subscribing until high school, because it was for a cause, I helped my mother make organic bug juice–garlic, red pepper, water–to spray on the tomato plants.  That was then.  

How many icicles now?

Today, another day: one.  Spring’s coming.

The night deposited another half-a-foot of snow, and my neighbor is valiantly shoveling the sidewalk.  There’s a desert–a lemon meringue pie, a blanc mange–what is a blanc mange? –which looks like the snow does now: softly peaked, luscious.  Am I thinking of a baked Alaska?  Why do cafes make those biscuity scones when they could make baked Alaskas? Di makes snow angels on top of her car, a very good idea.  The plow came early, but midway, the plowman (not ploughman) stopped, got out of his cab, and walked down the alley.  Why did he do that?  To tell someone to move a car?  To stretch his legs?  After a while he came back, and continued to plow the street. Now the sun is illuminating the large windows of the house on the corner.  Because it reflects sun and sky, it looks like one of those gold etched tumblers from Russia.  Now the sun is illuminating the bushes.  The lavender is completely covered, and most of the sage. My one rose plant bravely remains.  Will there be roses this summer?  My niece likes to pour maple syrup over snow and make –what would it be?–an Italian Ice?  She likes making snow angels, too.  My second cup of coffee calls.  Is this what Buddhists mean by being in the present moment, recording, noticing what is present?

Today.

Every time I look up, it’s either snowing or not.  I look up a great deal, so this is weather at its whimsical best.  I put on layers & cleaned off the car.  I don’t need to drive anywhere, but I thought it will be easier to clean when I do have to drive.  The New York Times on-line, with its videos & photo essays, occupied me for much of the morning.  I found out the New York fashionistas are Olympic watchers, which makes sense, because the Olympics are also about style and grace under pressure.

I’ve been reading Lynne Sharon Schwartz’ The Fatigue Artist.  It’s quiet yet acutely rebellious as well.  One of the nicest relationships is between the narrator and her step-daughter.  Hollywood should do a movie of Balancing Act, Lynne’s hilarious novel.  Nora Ephron could direct.