Thank You, Winter

There is a lot of snow here. I knew this before moving. It has been falling and falling. Meanwhile, life is still. I can no longer go for meandering walks since the snow will be past my knees and fill my boots. Instead, Chance and I have been sticking to the snowmobile path around the pond or walking up and down the town sidewalk, from post office to library, post office to library. Even Chance refuses to leave the path (most of the time) since the snow is over his head. If we do go off path he will follow in our footsteps. Kenzie is more weather-adaptable. I don't want to focus on the dreariness of winter, however.

This post is about thanking winter and everything that comes with it. I am thankful for the snow days that allow me to lounge on the couch with Kenzie, without really doing anything, except sitting, Chance on our laps, his feet dangling in the air. I rub his belly and rest my other hand on the nape of Kenzie's neck, feel the rise and fall of Chance's chest slow my breath, my heart, my pace, feel my heart beat in my chest so strong that it is a rhythm I don't want to lose and so I sit right here and listen to Chance's breath and my heart and Kenzie sweet-talking Chance. I have never sat here like this.

I am thankful for our home.  I am thankful for Chance not barking when he has his frozen lamb bone and his classical music and the lights off in the bathroom when we're gone (his local meaty lamb bones take up the entirety of our freezer. Our boss says his barking must improve or he (or us) have to go.) I am thankful for goat cheese. I am thankful for our Inn neighbors, Marcia and Jarvis, who invite Chance over to their yard every day to play with Potter, their big, sweet golden retriever. I don't think Jarvis could frown even if he wanted to and Marcia will never cease to pop her head out of the glass doors while we are walking by and tell us to let Potter out to play. 

I am thankful for Sam's mountaineering wool socks. I am thankful for the doelings' playfulness especially when they leap high into the air sideways and tuck in their legs like they are last minute darting over a fence that has caught their eye. I am thankful for Gwenyth (the head honcho goat) for her headbutting and affectionate munching on my glove strings. She is sassy and knows how to get what she wants. I am thankful for Chance eating our ants. Stinging flushed skin showers. Our hanging philodendron plant over our kitchen table that makes me feel like I am eating in the jungle. I am thankful for skyping my friend Rocky every week and for my Brooklyn friends that I don't talk to often but I think of every day and tell stories to in my head and hold close in my heart.  

I am thankful for being reminded of how books can be engrossing and powerful and true and make me cry because they also tell a story about my life and how I am humankind. I am thankful for writing. I am thankful for my sourdough starter that is working again. I am thankful, winter, for making me tough in the bitter cold outside and allowing me to be weak and held and kissed indoors. And even I am thankful for snow so that I can go cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing and gaze at the white crystal encasement of the world. And maybe even I am thankful for winter for its heartiness--comfort chicken noodle soup and Kenzie's biscuits and beef stews that remind me of my childhood nanny, Claire, and bacon and you don't have to feel bad for eating unhealthy or guilty for eating too many animals because it's winter and you need insulation from the frozen days and more frozen nights. 

Thank you, Winter, for making still moments like photographs and poems, thank you for marking memory itself in your cold slow days.  Thank you for the excuse to play drinking games to Breaking Bad, to cuddle a little bit too long, and to read that random book on the shelf that you don't know where it came from, Annie John, at Kenzie's desk that teaches you about growing up. I am still learning what growing up means. I hope that I am still sometimes a child and still sometimes a teenager and still sometimes a twenty-something as I grow up and I hope I can continue to carve out a small space for winter in my heart even though I am more light like spring and happy like summer and colorful like fall.