Snow...and the trees drop their arms

Had a peculiar day yesterday with the nice fall giving way to the first big snow, one so heavy that it downed power lines and we were without electricity for most of the day. It’s amazing how one such day shows you how addicted you are to the usual. I kept turning on lights, putting my coffee in the microwave, even bagels in the toaster. I had Henry all day and he had to have asked at least a dozen times for me to turn on the TV.

So it was a day of full engagement. I knew the day with Henry was coming…just not the shape of it. We played dinosaurs and cleaned out some cabinets – the ones under the china closet. They had enough interesting stuff in them that he enjoyed that for a while. I’d forgotten what was in there and little of it was precious. I let him un-box a Japanese tea set with a bunch of little cups, and play with those little appetizer/butter knives that come in a boxed set with Christmas trees for handles (all the while wondering where these things came from and what to do with them). I did a few reduction things like take the four crystal glasses that were still good out of a big box and throw away the box and the chipped glasses, sniffed sachet that had been in there forever and threw it away, and I found candles for the latter part of the day.

Donny was out shoveling and plowing and helping neighbors who had no heat. I envy him his usefulness sometimes. He’s such a “can do” guy.

We were in the middle of making chicken and dumplings with the cabin’s lantern sitting on the stove when the power came back on.

Around me today – outside the cabin – there are bangs and thumps, thwacks and great whooshes, as the heavy snow drops and branches shift. It comes down on the cabin’s roof like the foot steps of bears, and snow showers pass by the windows. The clumps that hit the ground make plopping noises, and holes in the surrounding snow.

Power lines and tree limbs come down with nothing more than the weight of little crystals of snow all piled on at one time.

I feel solidarity with my trees as they go through this enforced dropping of their arms and the release of weight that is too heavy a burden for them to carry.