Away skiing

I’m writing this short post on Thursday night. When it comes Sunday, I’ll be away with students skiing. Down here near the fjord, winter cannot hold. It snows and rains, hail and slush and sleet. We will retreat into the mountains where it’s cold and clear, the snow so deep, if memories of the last years serve, we’ll carve a path in it. We’ll build a fire and watch it sink into the snow.

*A brief burst of sun during this winter rain.*

*Same view, a different day. We had a little fresh snow last night, and a few patches of wet ice are still floating through the fjord.*

The days fill up with meetings. Every year I think it can’t get any busier. Somehow I’m wrong. But I’ve been carving out the time to write, although sometimes I doubt my work’s worth, and today I stopped to see my neighbor dog for a few minutes, which I haven’t taken the time to do lately. That felt good. I’ve found a new place in the house for an afternoon or evening writing session. I sit on my bed, bring my teapot in on a tray. It’s quiet, dark, and very peaceful.

*A bit more snow came on the weekend. I took a quick hike up onto the mountain. I love the way the colors fade in snow, as if in black and white, and the gray sky.*

I found this beetle walking on the snow. It felt so strange to see an insect there, cold-blooded arthropod. But we are hovering just above freezing these days. I suppose it’s not yet quite too cold for them. I found this short article about insects in snowy places. I guess it is another reminder of the great diversity and adaptations life finds everywhere.

I’ve been reading Tess Uriza Holthe’s When the Elephants Dance. It took me some time to get into, but now I’m tracking along. It’s a series of short stories, but narrated each by people hiding together in the cramped cellar of a house, hiding from soldiers during the American-Japanese battle for the Philippines. The atrocities are shocking. The stories have magic in them. Although it’s fiction, it reads with the voice of a testimonial. I’m glad I’m reading it. In college, I was working on a project that linked short stories together in a frame narrative, like this does. It’s something I would love to return to someday.

Best wishes for the coming weeks. Be well,
Jimmy