This Is My Point Of Origin

A snowbird wakes up to snow.

Today is my only day off each week. I got to sleep in. When I went to bed the sky was very busy with itself. When I woke up the sun was shining on three or four inches of fluffy crunchy snow! I had to run outside in my pyjamas to investigate before cars, kids, dogs, and industrious snow shovelers came out to muck up the painting the night drew for me. Yes, for me. But I'll share with you too.

This is my very much loved Japanese snowball tree actually covered in snow! I adore these little trees and laugh when it is dripping in white happy pom poms.

All the light here is blue. Hard to get good pictures. Here's the "front" of our house. Sun shining on my little kingdom.

It piled enough that today is all about watching accumulated snow drifts drop randomly from branches as the sun warms them just enough to loosen the grip. Wonderful!

This metal gate leads to our funny little enclosed garden area which I plan to cultivate much this year. I love that it is entirely closed in. I want wild flowers in there this year. I think I'll dig up parts of the lawn in a couple of weeks when it's less frozen and sprinkle some wild flower seeds. You need to do this in the fall or winter so that they'll get frozen or cold enough to bloom well in the spring.

Chick loves the snow. My Internet will be temporarily turned off today while we get fiber-optic wire connected so I'm going to do two things: make real snow cones with strawberry syrup I froze from the summer and I'm going to throw snowballs for Chick to catch.

We are wondering if I can buy chains for the Vespa. If I could, I'd totally learn to put them on. How awesome to go for a slow ride in the snow to the store on my sweet little Vespa! Without chains, riding this thing would be like asking to die today. That would be a lot less fun than, say, enjoying a Friday with hot PG Tips tea and real snow-cones. Yes, I'm going to invoke Laura Ingalls Wilder's spirit!

One thing that makes me sad is not being able to dress like her anymore. One of the reasons I get so angry at myself for not being capable (so far) of having a little self control and losing some weight. I used to dress like her all the time.

Ah well.

In spite of the spiritual lows of yesterday- I am enjoying every minute of this perfect winter because it's the winter I always dream of having. The last two years here we've gotten a little snow, enough to make me laugh and run around in it and feel so glad not to live where it never snows! But it is so fleeting usually. Melts fast and stops too soon. We've been getting this snow for days now and just when I think it's all over, it starts again. It was almost all gone yesterday (perhaps a little part of my low ebb) and then like magic it starts up in the late afternoon in huge dry flakes sticking to everything and piling up so fast I couldn't believe it.

Winter is my literal point of origin. It's when I was born. It is the season that wakes me up, turns my mind on, and I am generally less depressed in the cold, dark, rainy, (and snowy!) days of winter than I am at any other time of year. Although gardening has allowed me to come to appreciate all the seasons, winter will always be mine. Something I cherish and think of as my personal, I don't know, there really aren't a lot of words to tell it. It's mine.

I have a lot of friends who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and I totally respect how so many people feel the opposite of me about this season. The dark short days, the low temperatures, the lack of sunshine, the low clouds, the winds, the storms, the bleak dying off of everything that used to be growing and sprouting and flowering.

I am sorry that the season that makes me feel the most alive and happy has the opposite affect on others. But it doesn't diminish my own joy and I can't help but take my smiles out in the world with me. I've learned to commiserate with those who don't share my excitement at 40 mile an hour wind and rain storms because when the heat of summer comes and everyone around me is glowing and smiling and reveling in it I will be moaning and hiding and breaking out in heat rashes. I always appreciate it when a sun lover stops to acknowledge my discomfort. So I try to return the generosity.

Though I never expect them to apologize for it. Why should anyone apologize for loving any kind of weather? We all have our season, the one that brings us the closest to nature, and therefore to ourselves.

Mine is now.

When is yours?

The First Snow

It is snowing right now. This picture is from last year because I can't get a good picture of the snow coming down this morning, it isn't heavy enough yet. But believe me, I was out there in my ratty old bathrobe with my camera, grinning the big grin and I'm pretty sure that all of my neighbors think it's weird beyond words that every time it snows I run outside to dance around and laugh and take pictures and try to catch the flakes...

I know this is a terrible picture-but it just goes to show you that I'm not the only one in this family who loves snow. This is also from last year. This morning when I saw the first flake fall (I'm pretty sure it was the first flake because I have an interior snow monitor and it has been on snow alert for days now) I told Max to come see. I said "You have to look really carefully because there are only a few flakes coming down and they are hard to see." He stood at the window with me and just like snow deprived Californians*, we pointed out each ethereal swiftly falling flake with great fan fare. Max loves snow almost as much as I do.

I wish it would fall all day. I hope it will be falling when my mom comes today to celebrate her sixty second year on the planet. Her birthday was actually this past Tuesday but we can't get together on the week-days. She's just found out she won't have a job after next month (the grant that pays her salary was not renewed) so she's feeling a little low. She loves snow too so wouldn't it be great if we could all watch the snow coming down together?

Just as a little segue: is there any territory on earth that does not have ticks? I want to know how come I spent a lot of time romping around in the woods as a kid and I never got a tick, yet they seem to be everywhere now to the point where it seems like a miracle that I have never gotten one. I wonder about this frequently but it just now came back into my head because I know that it's never going to snow here enough to my satisfaction and I keep thinking that if we're ever not poor, maybe we could buy ourselves a little cabin in the hills where it snows more and go stay there often in the winter. However, I don't really want to go where there are ticks. That's one way in which suburbia kicks butt. If I had a farm somewhere I'd probably have to be twisting ticks out of our skin all the time. I'm not sure I'd ever be able to feel blase about that.

So looked at from the tick perspective I think urban homesteading is really the best of all worlds. Creating a little bit of the farm experience on a very small scale is quite appealing. It means not having to manage a large piece of property. It means being able to take care of what I have. It means being within walking distance of downtown which is something I really like.

Maybe I don't need anything else besides what I have. Being able to come to this conclusion again and again is very rewarding. Not longing for the impossible is soothing. I don't think it's asking the Universe for too much to be allowed to just keep what I've got which is pretty damn good. See how snow lays a veil of contentedness all over me? It's like magic.

This is a great day for baking. I have zucchini that needs to be made into bread or muffins and pumpkin which needs to be made into pie. I must make the pie because there's also whipping cream in the fridge which needs to be whipped before it goes sour. I think I'll also be making pasta for my mom's birthday lunch and open up a frozen pesto. I think we'll have a side of carrots with that; steamed first then lightly sauteed in butter, mustard, and honey.

We are supposed to be getting a very fierce storm this week-end. Especially tomorrow. The Oregonian was making a really big noise about it: two typhoons are crashing together over the PNW and unleashing 100 mile an hour winds on the coast, wind and torrential rains everywhere else. I love a good storm but I have to say that if our electricity goes out we're screwed. We'll freeze to death because I haven't finished my quilt yet and we are not amply supplied with decent extra blankets. Although, I take that back, we have three down comforters (one for each of us) and I don't think anyone needs more than that.

I bought some emergency candles yesterday, plus matches, propane lighters, "DD" batteries for the Mag lite flashlight, and plenty of Max food. We didn't have a single candle in the house because we stopped burning them after we had a house fire back in 2003. (The snow is really coming down right now. I keep stopping to gaze at it.) So we didn't have a single match or candle. I think it's wise to have them for emergencies.

This whole notion of being happy with what I have is something kind of different for me. All of my life (for as long as I can remember) I have imagined every endeavor on a large scale. I have spent my life reaching and plotting for the next move, the next moment, the next beverage, the next meal, the next triumph, the next job, the next project... I have found it intensely challenging to sit back and enjoy the moment at hand, or to say "This is perfect. This is exactly what I want." The point in life, to my mind, was to conquer it, not to live it. It's all about conquering the work force, powering through all of life's opposition, and never settling for less than everything in my imagination.

Thus, in my imagination, I have always been very successful...the best fashion designer (one with world wide recognition), or the chicest costume designer (one who works on all the best period movies and is obviously on Ang Lee's rolodex), or the founder of a wildly successful empire (whether it be an empire built around bath products, greeting cards, aprons, food, t-shirts, whatever), but I never imagined what it might be like to be done reaching. To find what I want without so much striving. To live a satisfying life without riches or fame or recognition.

That's not strictly true. I did once. One time in my life I looked around me and I felt that queer sense of calm that must come to everyone who has built the perfect life for themselves and allows themselves to acknowledge it. I felt my chest unhinge. I felt deep gratitude for my good fortune. My mind was at rest; no longer searching for the next level in life. I had found the right place, the right role for myself, and the right community. I had all the elements necessary to feel I was living richly without being rich. It was a moment when I realized that everything in my house actually fit in my house. It was all in balance. Even my nasty tiny bachelor style brassed out eighties bathroom had been transformed into a sweet small bathroom that was charming and not ugly.

I wonder...are we not supposed to actually acknowledge it when we're really content? Are we not supposed to notice when everything, even the little imperfections of our lives, are just the way we want them? I am superficially superstitious, which is to say that I am a skeptic and don't really hold that knocking on wood will ward off the evil eye, yet I do it anyway. You know, just in case. Common wisdom, (and also a lot of religious people) indicates that acknowledging our gratitude for our good fortune is by way of thanking the universe (or god) for our blessings. The idea being, I suppose, that if you appreciate it when you have it, perhaps you will be blessed with more.

I'm not convinced. Why? What could possibly be wrong with feeling gratitude and expressing it? Indeed, it seems a benign thing to recognize good fortune. To be happy with one's life as it is. Yet, the last time I felt it in my bones, the last time I looked around and knew that I was living a life that was perfect for me, that was just perfect- it vanished within one month.

One month. All of it-that good fortune, the happy life, the contentedness, the realization that I didn't have to reach anymore- all of it was ripped out from under my feet and we've been treading deep cold waters ever since. Two years running now. Still treading the deep cold dark waters.

I always believed that expressing real love, gratitude, appreciation for the little things, and being thankful for what you have help you keep those very things you're thankful for. I always believed that those who never see their good fortune are the most likely to lose it. I believed it mostly because of an unintentional belief in karma. The more good you generate, the more good you reap. The more bad you create, the more bad you attract to yourself.

I don't know if I believe any of that anymore. The proof is in the pudding, people who like proverbs are fond of saying. All my pudding has proved is that if you love something too much, if you are too happy, life will suck your marrow dry, and leave you with plenty to cry about. My defense mode says that you may as well beat life to the punch and be sure to always provide yourself with plenty to cry about, at least that way you can choose your own pain. That's also why I hurt myself so much when I was younger. If you imagine all the hurt and violence that others could inflict on you, and just go ahead and do it to yourself before they do, you really take the wind out of other people's sails. Once you've taken a steak knife to your own arm, there is pretty much nothing worse anyone can do to you.

Keep anticipating pain and arrive there first to ease the blow.

I don't actually consider that a positive or healthy philosophy.

Don't let other people, God, or the Universe choose your pain for you.

Now I'm caught between philosophies. I'm not actually sure what I believe anymore. I refuse to let myself sink back into that place where I must anticipate pain and provide it for myself so no one else can have the power to burn me, yet I don't believe in God so I can't blithely leave it all to "him" as many people in my community do. (I've been working with lots of religious people this week). In talking to other people (at work) about life's twists and turns, especially the ones we don't see coming and that leave us emotionally hydroplaning, I hear people saying "God gets me through it." Or "I just trust in God." Or "God loves me and that's all I really need."

I'm happy for people who can turn to a spiritual entity to take care of them when things fall apart. Though I always feel a little shock hearing people mention God, because where I used to live I didn't know a single religious person. No one I knew ever mentioned "God" in that familiar believing kind of way. It sometimes sounds more like a person has just told me that they believe in leprechauns. I imagine it must be just as shocking to them that I don't turn to God in moments of trouble. I also wonder if some of the people I've been working with feel that my misfortunes are the result of not letting Jesus in my life. It's not a question I plan on asking anyone of firm Christian faith.

I only bring all this up because the snow has got me in a meditative frame of mind. I feel calm inside. I have zero faith that my life is going to be smooth, or that I will get to keep the things I have now that I love. Nor do I believe that if I am a good enough person I will attract mostly good to my life. The only thing I really do have faith in is the irrefutable. Weather happens. People are born. People die. These are the things I can really know for sure. Everything is ephemeral, shifting endlessly, and there is almost nothing I can count on besides the irrefutable.

Maybe next month things will seem brighter-maybe I won't have to give up my health care and get a minimum wage job, maybe good fortune will find us again-but I think the only sure course for me to follow right now is to enjoy the minute pleasures as they come. The tiniest bits of joy are maybe all we'll get. I wanted snow this winter and if no more comes, at least I had this beautiful morning with the quiet, quiet snow. It's stopped now but I think I got the best out of it. Writing here in my office gives me a wonderful view of the sky and I missed very little of it.

That feels a lot like joy.

My plan right now is to be happy with what I have. To be thankful. To hope that our life will smooth out and get a little bit less sketchy. However, I won't be feeling these feelings or cherishing these hopes, or allowing contentedness to blossom in my heart as a part of any faith or karmic plan. I will cultivate this little bit of happiness and hope because it feels a lot better than the alternative. I will cultivate happiness against a backdrop of uncertainty because that's what life is demanding of me. To count on nothing but feel hope anyway.

Is it some kind of sign that a blue Heron just glided past my house in an elegant line?

*Ha. But we're not Californians anymore, AND I have been an Oregonian at heart since I was eight years old.

Raggedy Patches And Feathers For All

This week-end Philip mucked out the chicken run. This is a big job we only do every few months. We add new hay every couple of weeks which freshens up their run and the old hay and droppings compact themselves underneath. Eventually you have got to remove it all and give them all fresh hay and clean out all those old droppings. Philip piled them into our raised beds to age. By springtime the chicken manure should be mellow enough for plants to grow well in it.

This is Flower-bud. She has lots of pin feathers developing on her bare patches. Pin feathers are the hard sheaths that the new feathers emerge from. They look like thick porcupine needles and just about as comfortable. I want to wrap her in a down comforter until she is no longer so bare bottomed. But these urges are human and she's a bird. She has no need of comforters. The cold air on her body will prompt her body to get on with making new feathers.

And, hello?!, how sick is it of me to wish to cover her in a blanket made from dead bird's feathers? That's like wanting to feed a sick calf beef stock.

One thing our girls love is getting a bunch of fresh hay to kick around. It rustles and flies satisfyingly under their foraging claws. Philip found a rich cache of snails for them too. Always a culinary treasure for both birds and French people. Our hens would find it sacrilegious and mystifying to cover the snails with butter sauce.

Lots of hay for the hen house too. Perhaps they'll start laying in here again. If it weren't for the bird feces in there I'd want to crawl into that little house and sleep all winter with the winds howling around me.

Even though David Bowie's music was the back drop for most of my teen years, what I might call the real voice of my breaking out and sharpening my independence, I would have to say that if there is one singer who's music, lyrics, and voice can capture what my spirit is really all about it would have to be Bob Dylan. If I was to try to tell you who I am underneath all the layers, the B.S.; stripped down to the essentials, it would always be Bob. There are a thousand brilliant voices whose songs I love, whose notes speak to who I am, but Dylan gets it all in one breathless collection of stories.

It's no surprise that I have been hungry for Dylan's music in the last week. When the weather turns in the fall and I start hearing the wheels of winter moving, I come back to where I started. Always back to the beginning. I was born in midwinter and it's where I come to roost. Heading back to winter always makes me feel happy. Sometimes in that childish way where I feel an uplifting inside so steep and bright it catches my breath and exhales in spontaneous laughter. Pure joy for no special reason.

Sometimes in that bittersweet way that melancholic people can be happy within life's vicissitudes, it's known evils and laments. Happy that though life always brings with it a banquet of experiences not all joyous, all of them are worth knowing. Happy that it always comes down to the simplest movements; making the beds with fresh sheets, standing over a hot stove stirring soup, sitting under a blanket with the people you love best in the world.

Dylan's voice is, for me, like the sharp bite in the autumn air that tells birds to start their migration south. Except that I'm always pointed north. I only go south to visit friends and the past. So isn't it appropriate that I'm listening to "Girl From The North Country" right now? I do wish it was the version he recorded with Johnny Cash which has to be one of the most amazing recordings ever. Two of the United States best story tellers. They write about the true spirit of Americans better than anyone else.* They have told our stories and made an imprint so deep we won't forget.

I am a political, earthy, independent, folksy, brash, brave, ordinary, boot-wearing, new, and hearty individual. If Americans were to shed their mansions, their lust for the biggest cars, the cheapest food, and have a look in the mirror, perhaps they would see what I see. What Bob saw. What Johnny saw. I think Americans have always been about newness and the big broad sweep which I suppose is why we love big cars and homes. Back when we were a bunch of German and British immigrants we were a bunch of misfits looking for the new frontier. Everything here was bigger than in England and Germany. It's too bad we had to kill off so many of the people who were already here. But they are also part of the legacy of who we have become. Native Americans are part of this whole mesh of who we are.

Although I am pretty intensely ashamed of my country right now, Bob always reminds me that Americans have a wonderful spirit that I'm proud to be a part of. But like children who have yet to learn that the world does not revolve around them, Americans are busy stepping on everyone and obscenely ignoring other people's needs and human rights.

I will never be a flag waving American. I am too worldly to believe the myth of our great (ever shrinking) freedoms or the myth of our forefathers' great plan for us all...because what they wanted for us is definitely not what we have created and I think they would all be pretty shaken to see how we have interpreted their declarations. A few of them were slave owning people which automatically makes them ineligible for any honest hero worship.

I'm not waving any one else's flag either. There is no country on this earth that has not, at some point in their history, done all the things my country is doing now. The only flag I will ever wave is one of peace. I know humans too well to believe there will ever be a time of complete peace, I am not that naive, but I will never stop hoping for it.

Isn't it funny how one thought leads to another until you find yourself where you had no intention of going?

There was a possible on-line job opportunity that I had to take a test for. I failed it last night. I feel let down a little that I couldn't pass it even though the truth is that I don't think I would have really liked that work. I looked at the local job situation after that and I've got to say it's quite depressing. A dampener on my happy. The truth is, I haven't cultivated the proper good attitude about my necessity to go out of my house to look for low paying full time work that will necessitate my child being in day care. I'm going to need to change that attitude. Life throws us these curve balls and your eyes have to learn to follow them.

So I must turn back to my plan which is to get my house to a place of better order and to do some of the things I need to do that will make it easier to leave it every day and happier to come back to. Like painting my living room, dining room, and "family" room. Like making some curtains to frame the gorgeous storms coming. Like duvet covers to brighten the rooms we dream in. Like a couple of big quilts to snuggle up in when we all come home grumpy and tired from our unhappy situation. Home should always be a place we feel good coming back to. Especially if we must leave it every day unwillingly.

Our finances will allow me a couple of months to do this. Then it's all over. This long happy homesteading dream. I wonder if we've made the right choices. Should Philip have kept looking for work that would pay him enough to live on? But he's happy with where he is, no commute, working for people he likes, and doing work he's good at doing. Would anything else have been available to him? No other opportunities seemed likely to crop up.

This is what life has thrown us. Time to catch it and keep moving.



*My personal opinion which it is not necessary for anyone else to agree with.

Late winter on my mind

If we never have enough money to send Max to college, these shoes will certainly be the reason. These are the Birkenstocks I bought.

For Christmas we bought Max a volcano kit and have slowly been working on it. Yesterday Philip and Max painted it. I think it looks great! I'm excited to get to the step where we mix up the stuff that makes the lava that will ooze out the top.

This pile amounts to nearly all the clothes and towels in current circulation. All right here, clean, and on the floor. Philip folded at least two thirds of it today. Happily, I cleaned the bathroom and did some cooking too. I love the evenings when my house has been freshly cleaned and it smells like good food.

I really love this time of year. In December and January everything in nature seems quieter; being deep in hibernation can have that effect. The end of February is not so quiet. Everywhere you look buds are swelling, shoots are pushing up, and I swear you can almost hear the sap beginning to run. The daffodils around town, and in my own yard, are all on the verge of unfurling. This kind of anticipation is the best kind. I already know the end of the story, so there's no anxiety about it, but I know what beauty is about to burst open in this grey wet landscape, so I'm almost holding my breath waiting for it.

I always want to write about seasons and gardening, but it's almost impossible to say anything about them that hasn't been said to death already. It's always the same words. I think it would be an incredible feat to write about gardening with a completely fresh vocabulary that says essentially the same thing but without sounding precious and annoying. Has any writer managed to do this yet?

One of the most profound, beautiful, troubling, and irresistible words I've ever encountered is entropy. The true ruler of the whole universe. Special nemesis to the Williamson family. One of the first concepts Max not only understood, but vehemently rebelled against. Where Philip speaks most eloquently with his art; with the tangible evidence of entropy.

Entropy.

I love words.

I eat them for breakfast.

I roll them around all day long.

A lot of the best words tell the darkest stories.

I'm going to go figure out what my favorite sunny word is.

That could take a long time.

Best to drink a beer.

The Snowbird has landed

It was not supposed to snow last night. We watched Hamish Macbeth episodes until one am when Philip decided it was time to shuffle off to bed. I, on the other hand, was already so tired I couldn't move. Consequently, I fell asleep in my chair and didn't wake up until three thirty am. This is unfortunate on many levels. No sleep in a living room chair is good sleep. After the first five minutes all the cozy splendor fades into sleep peppered by the DVD theme song playing on an endless loop in your dreams because you forgot to turn it off as you drifted into that lazy chair sleep. Then there's the fact that it's incredibly bad for the neck and back. Considering my recent incapacitation due to my back going out, you would think I enjoyed being in a lot of pain to be so careless with it. Which would make you wonder how I could claim not to understand people enjoying recreational pain.

I stumbled around turning lights off and chanced to look out a window or two which revealed a light slow snow floating in the air. Not a lot of promise for snow on the ground in the morning. Still, it made me smile. Then I had to pick the dog up because she wouldn't budge off of the bed and I had to put her on her own bed. This also isn't good for backs. Lifting 49 pound dogs off of beds and carrying them across the room is awkward. Finally I got to sleep.

This morning I woke to an excited Max. Needless to say I was sour mouthed and groggy. He commanded me to look outside at the snow coming down. He announced that he was sure there would be no school because the ground was covered. I told him I didn't think it could have snowed enough to be covered. Like all good dictators do, he forcibly showed me how wrong I was. He told me to go look out the window. I mumbled about how that would require me to get out of the warm bed and move my limbs which I wasn't willing to do. "No no mamma, all you have to do is sit up and look. See, you can see the bushes out there are covered! You can see from right here. C'mon mom, just sit up and look." Then he told his dad to get up right now to go play in the snow. It wasn't even fully light outside.

Naturally Philip resisted. He has never been a morning person. He will never volunteer to get up before me. We don't exactly fight about it but there are little quiet morning skirmishes almost every day. If I let him get away with it he would stay in bed come hell or high water until ten am every single day. Hell and high water have an uncanny resemblance to me and Max.

For this reason I keep the breastfeeding card right there on the nightstand, ready to use in an emergency. Philip didn't get up early for a single morning for a year after Max was born. I got up because I had to breastfeed the baby. I also fed the cat and made coffee. I got really tired of it. I got mad. There was a sizable battle over that one. But he saw that he couldn't win. Life changes when you have a baby and there's a lot a man can do to share the burden. It's easy for women to feel they don't have a right to ask their men to help out more, but so much of the burden of bringing that baby to life rests on women's shoulders already, it's fair to ask that he make coffee and feed the cat. (For the record, Philip has been more helpful than many dads I've known with all the nitty gritty baby care with less complaining. So I'm not bashing him here.)

I didn't have to resort to the "I went through nine months, forty hours, and lots of blood to give you this son who right now is merely asking that you get up and play in the damn snow." He went. Grumbling, but he went.

This is so not what I was going to write about.

I was going to talk about how funny it is that a girl born and (mostly) raised in California can love the rain and snow and cold so much. I have always loved the winter. Before we moved to Ashland I practically had a heart attack I was so flooded with joy when it snowed in Richmond California. I was probably about six or seven at the time. I remember feeling like suddenly the world was perfect and happy and in spite of the very dark and bad things that happened at that time in my life, my little dark heart was completely flushed of all that was evil, for the seven minutes the snow fell. I ran in it, played in it, laughed and shrieked and completely forgot what nasty hell life can be for little kids.

I also remember we visited friends in Mount Shasta. I think it may have been my dad's cousin Mark and his wife April who lived there. We went when there was snow and I remember feeling like a creature born to taste the ice and walk through the powder sky. Like a doe born in the stark naked landscape, I had eyes and skin equipped to live where so many other animals will die if they don't hide and burrow. My senses are incredibly sharpened by the cold. I never feel as sharp, awake, and electrified with life as when it's so cold outside it strips your eyeballs.

What makes a person love something they have had such limited experience with? I am a person who believes in a combination of nature and nurture. You can learn to love almost anything. But some of us are born knowing things we have no reason to know; the way I knew that if I ever stepped foot in Scotland I would never get it out of my blood, I would never want to come home. I'm not Scottish, I didn't grow up with Scottish lore, nor did I know much at all about Scotland. I just knew; the same way I knew what sex would feel like long before I lost my virginity. I can't tell you how I knew, all I can tell you is that I wasn't in a hurry to get down and dirty and when I did, the only thing that surprised me about it was how much more it hurt the first time than I expected. It did not shatter my world with crazy newness. Because I already knew.

That's how I felt about snow too. About really cold weather. The Bay Area is not a place where you can experience extremes in weather. I was born in the heart of winter. Which doesn't mean much there. I remember seeing snow and cold in movies and knowing that's where I belonged.

I think you need to know all of that to understand why I am full to capacity this morning with a deep sense of belonging. If you want to know the truth, the truth I hardly ever say because it really annoys people who live in places like Michigan and Vermont, the truth is: I would thrive in a climate where I had to shovel snow and wear five insulated layers just to do my laundry in the garage. I love the cold that much. I tell people all the time that I'm not longing for six feet of snow, but I only say that because I get tired of people assuming that what they consider a great hardship could possibly make me really happy. These are usually the same people who don't understand how I could possibly find hundred degree weather an extreme hardship. They don't believe that the headaches, the heat rashes, the nausea, the sunstroke, the lobster red burn on my skin could possibly be so bad that I don't want to be broiled alive every single day of my life like they do.

Now I've told the truth. The next time you hear me politely explaining that although I love the snow I wouldn't want to live where people's houses get buried in it, you will know I'm telling a lie out of kindness (or irritation, depending on how you wish to look at it).

But I won't ever live in Vermont or Michigan. Both Philip and I are west coast people. The other fact is that Oregon is one of only two places I have ever been to where the first time I saw it I got the strong sensation that I had just come home to where I belong. I never belonged in California. I had to learn to love my home state. Which I did. But here, here in McMinnville, as in Ashland, I have landed where my spirit needs to be. Wants to be.

It won't snow here every winter. It may not snow again this year. While I have to admit I wish this area was much colder and got more snow, I love it here in this spot we've landed, so much so that I've decided to be happy with every snowfall, no matter how fleeting. But honestly? Oregon has been calling me home for twenty two years, and I think this snow is all for me. I've been missing the snow for every single one of those years, and I think the universe has been listening. The powers that be (which Max thinks is a really fat man in a brown suit) "Give her some snow. This is where she needs to be, give her the snow to make sure she doesn't convince Philip to move to Vermont. Do it now, she's a little crazy, snowbirds seek snow. It won't hurt us to give her a little more snow. But if she gets greedy we can bring in some unseasonably warm weather to teach her a lesson."

That's right folks, this snow is my homecoming party. And dammit, I'll smile like a loony idiot if I want to!

It's been melting the whole time I've been writing this little treatise. The walk to work was amazing. My boots crunching through powder; children everywhere building snowmen, throwing snowballs, and laughing. So much laughter! (Max was right, there's no school today). All the power lines dropping snow in sudden shivers. The sun started coming out. Is there anything more perfect in this world than snow dazzlingly new and white glinting like powdered diamonds on every roof, in every tree, and lighting every step you take? Children become little bundled imps with red cheeks and happy hands scooping up this amazing substance in a frenzy of excitement. Neighbors run out into the streets, all steps muffled. Dogs are extremely busy examining frozen scent and chasing the snowballs between the kids. It's amazing how snow can make everything quiet even when everyone is out in it bursting with excitement.

Max has told me he doesn't love winter. I don't think he likes the rain that much. But I'll tell you something, the kid loves snow. He loves it like I do. It lifts him up and inflates his lungs so that if he didn't have bones to ground him he'd fly. I made myself a little baby snowbird with white hair and skin so pale he could hide in this white landscape.