Winter Dreaming

from where i sit    WINTER DREAMING    JAN. 6, 2014  PAT SPILSETH

A friend just sent Neil Gaiman’s New Year’s wishes for 2014 to me.  I’m sending them on to you:

“May your coming year by filled with magic and dreams and good madness.  I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can.  And I hope, somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself.”

Determined to make 2014 a more productive year, my plans for January have already been stifled.  Though I had big ideas to play the piano, set up a fresh canvas on the easel to begin painting, and write some fabulous ideas that come to me in dreams, sneezes and my constantly dripping nose have exhausted me.  So much for good intentions, those resolutions will have to wait.  

My stuffed up head is full of mucus; my ears are plugged; my sore throat aches with sneezes and coughing, and I can’t read with these watery eyes that need to be wiped constantly.  Though I strive to catch the ever-constant drips from my nose with tissues of coarse kleenex, I’d reather be using those soft hankies Mom saved for me.  They’re someplace,  in a special box in some safe place, but I haven’t been able to discover where.  My nose is on fire, flaring red and swollen, even though I’ve coated it with with Vaseline and Vicks.   Old wives tales used to tell me that a large, red nose was the sign of a person with alcohol issues.  Nope, I’m not there, but a glass of wine in the evening is somewhat comforting to this aching, cold-ridden body of mine.

My husband Dave has escaped our deep freeze weather.   Flying south to the relative warmth of Florida, he’s playing in numerous tennis tournaments with pals wintering in the South.  Fast Eddie, our funny brother-in-law, the super car salesman from New York, has invited Dave to join him to his house in Fort Meyers for some relaxing in the pool, hot tub time, good stories and lots of fresh fish dinners.   Daily, Big Ed at 6’6” holds court in the community’s hot tub, where he is the Florida entertainer of the year.  Dave is full of great stories when he returns to Minnesota.  I wonder if he’ll decide it’s time for us to join the snowbirds basking in January and February’s sunshine.

Meanwhile, Buddy, my slumbering, snoring Beagle pal, and I are hibernating inside our warm house with outside temps below zero and a landscape encased in white from the frozen lake to snow-covered lawns to frost coated windowpanes.  

But we’re happy.  Each of us is in our own comfort cocoon.  A jigsaw puzzle is laid out on a table by the window and a new stack of books awaits me. I’ve made hot chicken soup to soothe my cold; Buddy is snoozing on the couch with his favorite afghan covering nose and rear; the radio is playing soft jazz and the coffee is warm.  Life is good right here in Minnesota.

Cardinals and sparrows are feeding at the kitchen window’s seed cylinder; squirrels are flying through the limbs of the maples outside my window, and the frozen lake is silent, absent of any people moving about.  Not one skier, snowmobiler or skater is active on the lake today.  Most everyone is immobolized with these -50 degree wind chills.  More deep freeze temps are predicted tomorrow, but the weekend will be a balmy 30 degrees.  Such is the ever-constant changing temperature cycle in Minnesota.  Stay warm and cozy.

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