After some very cold, dry days we ended up with snow after all last week. Throughout the northwest, snow and ice appeared midweek and did not melt as quickly as expected despite what everyone’s phone told them. My daughters had two, consecutive snow days and our road was an icy mess for most of the week. We stayed home.
Yesterday, I appreciated reading Margaret Renkl’s NYT Op-Ed reflecting on the recent (and rare) snow event in Nashville.
A snow day in the American South on an overheating planet is exactly like an extravagant bouquet of luminous time that comes out of nowhere and lasts as long as it cares to, on a schedule we cannot entirely predict, much less control. Last week the sky offered an unexpected gift of time. Thank God I had no choice but to take it.
What did I do with the unexpected gift of time last week? I finished (and submitted) some writing projects, completed two grant proposals (one related to farming and the other to writing), tried out some new cookie recipes, took a long winter walk, and had some fun moments with my daughters in the snow. We made a fire everyday and I genuinely enjoyed the slower pace, despite the chaos of two kids running around the house asking me what they should do every ten minutes.
Since we had this bonus winter break week, I am now having a hard time believing it is still January! December went by in a blink, but January is another story.
During our snowy week, my review of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide came out on Terrain.org. I wanted to share it here on Her Deepest Ecologies since this book brought up a lot of thoughts about how art and science overlap for me. It was also a balm to revisit the color and exuberance of this anthology on a fairly grey day. Thanks for reading!
Take care as we end this month and move into February!