Here to Stay

January, 2024

I’ve waited patiently for the snow. 

We’ve had a skiff here and there, 

but nothing that settled in to stay 

‘Look what I brought you! It’s winter!’ 

Well, winter’s here loud and clear. 

Except the gentle silence of snow 

falling through still air has been 

missing. The air has glistened with
frantic snowflakes waved about, 

sent spinning through bare branches,

finding shelter on any corner or 

fence line that would suffice.

I’ve waited patiently for the snow. 

We’ve had big blow with snowbanks

of crisp white that have settled in to stay.

“And finally Winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind, 

and all the land will be mantled with snow”

~ Roy Bean, Judge

(1825 - 1903)

Grandma's Kitchen

A delicate, orange thread of yarn magically took me tumbling through the decades to my grandma’s kitchen. That ball of orange yarn, all the way from Sweden, knitted or crocheted into a hat maybe, possibly edging on a scarf was paired with some random cotton for a dishcloth, and I remembered Grandma and her kitchen. 

Grandma was from Sweden. She pronounced my name like no one else ever has, her Swedish accent all but vanished, but slipping out when she said my name. 

My name felt special. Teaching me 

how to say 'thanks a lot' in Swedish ~ 

‘tack så mycket ~ was fun. I still love 

the way it rolls off my tongue. 

Sometimes I say it just for the 

feel and sound of the past.

African violets on the glass shelves 

in the window threw prisms of sunlight 

to sparkle the spotless kitchen. Grandpa’s 

old rocking chair waited for Mrs. Van 

to come for coffee. Always a fresh table 

cloth in her neat and tidy kitchen. Her 

old linen table cloth with the apples and 

vases and a brown singe in the shape of 

her iron in one corner is kept ironed and 

folded. The thin spots in the fabric are 

like these memories, and just as precious. 

“No memory is ever alone; it’s at the end of a trail of memories, 

a dozen trails that each have their own associations.”

~ Louis L’Amour

Between Choices

I asked myself

What is courage?

A tiny voice whispers to me 

that there is no such thing 

until there is a thin veil 

between choices that pull and tug against each other. 

One must win out. 

Heart and soul take charge, 

if only for a moment, to find safety 

past the thin veil between choices.

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we 

truly are, far more than our abilities.”

~ J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets