household dreamtime

My so-called creativity seems to be in lockdown these days, immobile as the cold white world outside windows and doors. I write, can't land, get diverted, read, resent the things I have to do and avoid doing which adds tension that I react to unfavorably. I pick up whatever knitting project is nearby, soft cashmere, colorful wool, bamboo, knit a few rows. It's all I want to do. And I'd like to be doing it somewhere else.

I'm in that senseless place where I think everyone else is accomplishing, doing, skiing, hiking, feeling joyful. I can appreciate the beauty of winter as life takes on different features that surprise and delight -- animal footprints in fresh snow...inanimate sculptures that come alive in blue shadows...

but I could easily live without ever seeing one more snowflake or pretty pot of snowcapped dead flowers.

Problem is, I'm not drawn to any of the warm places we've considered (AZ, FL, CA) and don't know where we would start a new life at our advanced ages. Taos has been a kindred-spirit place for me. I knew it was home by my second day visiting back in 1986. Gave up everything back east to come here to live. But what is one to do about winter which seems to grow harsher each year? Or are we less tolerant? So many winters in a long life.

glamours
I seem to thrive only in my imagination these days, which doesn't bode well for getting more mundane things accomplished. It's almost like living in a dream or being under a spell. The other morning I glanced out the kitchen window to the west as I was putting on the tea kettle (fresh snow fell during the night) and I saw a new mountain! It was as ethereal as the floating mountains in Avatar. For a moment I actually believed that vision was real -- and then realized it was a tree I've looked at a million times in all seasons, but that morning it had taken on a visage unlike any I'd seen before. It was magic I tell you! So was the shooting star late last night. It whooshed down in a long trail of brilliant light before it went out completely. A magnificent star death.

I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
       Leonard Cohen