Shooting the sky.
I woke this morning to snow swirling down. I stayed curled up in the dark, watching it fall. I wanted to stay, but there are fish left alive in the sea.
This has been a good winter, a true one. Do I usually hide from it? This year the season is for the socks worn scrunched up to my thighs, the rare free mornings spent knitting and reading inside, gathering firewood in the city in the form of discarded holiday trees, bundling and then braving the wind on my bicycle, warming up at the houses of friends, the long hoped for cups of tea. Even the usual despair that comes with the dark months has been something to wrap up against, to brace against occasionally, but part of the nature of things, and no great hardship.
We had a party for the Shift in the Gregorian Calendar Date. The men and I all wore suits, and the women wore their dresses, and we toasted one another a happy 1963. There were nervously flirtatious secretaries, an intelligent and attractive wife wrapped in the fur that I'd given her, the biting mistress of the office who owned the room in her sparkly New Year's dress, mayors, mobsters, and lecherous ad men. Tom slaved in the kitchen, making gallons of simple syrup, carving origami out of orange peel, and emerging with one flawless Old Fashioned after another. And another, and another. The next day I woke and worked. I rode home (still slightly hung over) along Broad Street, doing my best to catch the last of the drunks and the mummers who were singing and shouting and stumbling through the strut, falling in the general direction of Two Street.
Being First Friday, tonight we visited small galleries erected in cafes. We admired the work of friends and strangers, shared whiskey and tea, fought and laughed and held hands in an effort to deter the affections of mad drunks. We biked South and West together until we parted ways, and I came back here to my typing and my cup of tea.
This has been a good winter, a true one. Do I usually hide from it? This year the season is for the socks worn scrunched up to my thighs, the rare free mornings spent knitting and reading inside, gathering firewood in the city in the form of discarded holiday trees, bundling and then braving the wind on my bicycle, warming up at the houses of friends, the long hoped for cups of tea. Even the usual despair that comes with the dark months has been something to wrap up against, to brace against occasionally, but part of the nature of things, and no great hardship.
We had a party for the Shift in the Gregorian Calendar Date. The men and I all wore suits, and the women wore their dresses, and we toasted one another a happy 1963. There were nervously flirtatious secretaries, an intelligent and attractive wife wrapped in the fur that I'd given her, the biting mistress of the office who owned the room in her sparkly New Year's dress, mayors, mobsters, and lecherous ad men. Tom slaved in the kitchen, making gallons of simple syrup, carving origami out of orange peel, and emerging with one flawless Old Fashioned after another. And another, and another. The next day I woke and worked. I rode home (still slightly hung over) along Broad Street, doing my best to catch the last of the drunks and the mummers who were singing and shouting and stumbling through the strut, falling in the general direction of Two Street.
Being First Friday, tonight we visited small galleries erected in cafes. We admired the work of friends and strangers, shared whiskey and tea, fought and laughed and held hands in an effort to deter the affections of mad drunks. We biked South and West together until we parted ways, and I came back here to my typing and my cup of tea.