March Madness

To quote a friend who lives where snow lays about until June, "...winter ain't over...there will be more snow."  He was talking about his hometown in Montana, but he might just as well have been describing my town.

I awoke to dozens of birds, some of whom who have recently returned from their warmer vacation spots, chattering and squawking about all the white stuff falling from the sky.  Oh, yeah, Peeps, there was a whole lot of birdy WTFs filling the backyard!

And it's still coming down!  What is going on with the weather this year?  It's been weird everywhere.

 

 

 

This is not the most snow we've ever had here in Hanover, but it is more than we've had this late in the year.  The first two images are from my backyard; the last two, from the backyard at work, taken from the porch of the office where I work.

Madness!  Just plain madness!  Where the heck is spring?!

Snow Day

(http://thesuettas.blogspot.com/2010/11/snowy-days.html)

 

 

 

The snow started falling today a little before noon, Hanover time.  Tiny flakes that might have been raindrops a couple of days ago drifted down, pirouetting about in the swirling winds, before finally coming to rest atop one another in soft powdery drifts; like confectioners sugar dusting a cake.  I stood at the kitchen window at work this afternoon, transfixed by the specks of light that reflected off the snowflakes.  Except that I was standing still, it seemed my world was a snow globe that some child had shaken, in order to watch the iridescent glitter fall to the bottom again.

 

I have ambivalent feelings toward snow.  Some kinds I like very much, especially the soft powdery kind; dancing splinters of light.  And the kind with clusters of flakes, diving to earth, colliding with each other on the way down to either break into smaller clumps or become enjoined, forming mega-clusters.  That kind makes me wonder if that's how the planets formed, clumps of matter bumping and grinding and joining and breaking apart in their earliest stages of life.

 

Just like most other folks, I hate having to shovel snow, clearing it off my car, getting it in my shoes or down my neck; all the dirty piles of it at the curbs, overflowing the sidewalks; the tamped down snow that forms fall-on-your-butt zones.  Then there is the slush on the streets that the town refuses to scrape away or salt, making a trip around the block a life-or-death/fender-bender adventure best left to tanks, or Humvees with ship-anchor chains on the tires.

 

I stopped for a few groceries on my way home which took a little longer than usual because of aforementioned slushy streets.  By the time I pulled into the carport, dusk was well on its way to becoming nightfall.  The security light at the back door shone across virgin snow cover on the lawn and the sidewalk leading to the house.  The rainbow of light splinters caused by the light hitting the minute ice crystals in the snow took my breath away; it was so beautiful.  Rather than mar the pristine surface of the sidewalk, I slogged across the blanketed lawn to the back door.  Snow filled my shoes and clung to the bottom half of my pants legs, but I didn't care. 

 

I wanted that perfectly flat strip of snow undisturbed so that later tonight, when all the neighbors' lights are out and the street lights at the front of my house have cycled off, I'll go back out with my high-powered LED flashlight and watch the light and fire and diamond-dust show the powder will put on for me.  Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.

 

It's a crow thing. 

Truth

"We chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away."
   Charles de Lint

   Whiskey River

Crowing

Artwork (c) by Larry Eifert

 

 

Seven raucous crows in my oak tree this morning.  I think it is a mated pair with hangers-on, either their offspring or members of their extended family.  I recognized some of their calls as bonding cawing.  A prelude to mating, perhaps?  Or bragging about what has already occurred?  Either way, can spring be far behind?

 

Grandson Donovan will have the splints in his nose removed this morning.  I couldn't be there for his surgery, but I'm meeting my daughter Kareema and Donovan at the medical center where the procedure takes place later this morning.  He's been advised that this will be uncomfortable to downright painful.  Kareema knows he'll want to hold/squeeze her hand during this, so she's preparing for her own painful session.  He's going to feel a great deal better once they're out and he can return to school.  Probably do some bragging of his own.

Short post today.  So far, these are the most interesting things going on in my life this morning.

But, the day is young.

Inside the Mind of Crow

Donovan and Nanny 1993

The Crow of which I speak is not avian.  I am the Crow in question.

I’m treading on unfamiliar ground here, trying to publicly analyze the inner workings of something so familiar yet so exasperatingly foreign to me.  There are times when I wonder if I might also be an Aspie, especially as it defines my general lack of interpersonal skills.  My grandson, Donovan, and I share a number of neuropsychological traits, but differ in our approaches to other people, in our abilities to recognize when we have gone too far, or even completely awry, in our efforts to connect to others, and in how to prevent ourselves from making those same missteps in the future.

We went to watch “The Hobbit” last Sunday at a local theater.  As the credits rolled and the low lights came up, some older teens, perhaps college freshmen or sophomores, behind us began talking about – analyzing, actually – the literary merits of the various scenes just viewed.  Grandson turned around to join in, but was out of his league, though, to their credit, the other young people engaged him.  Donovan didn’t catch that they weren’t talking about the computer graphics wonders of the film, but he kept plugging on.  I think he was trying to impress the lone girl in the group of five. 

Donovan’s language was that of a much younger kid, maybe 12 or 13, but at 6’5” with shoulders to match, he obviously is older than that.

At some point, the other kids (hey, they’re decades younger than I, so they’re kids) tried to take back the conversation they had started.  Grandson tagged along, or tried to, anyway.  Girl-of-his-focus said to her friends, “Did any of you notice the allegory in the movie about the dwarves being like the Jews?”

Nobody answered her.

“You know, how they were driven from their lands, had all their gold and treasures stolen from them?”

Still no response from her friends.  Donovan tried to talk about how cool the dragon Smaug looked.

“When they became wanderers?”  Girl tried without success to get a response from her friends, and turned sharply away from Donovan.

He persisted.  He didn’t understand the body-language signals that said she didn’t want to include him in the conversation.

He also wasn’t aware of the mounting tension between our group and theirs.  My daughter was getting her mother-bear look in her eyes and sat up too straight in her seat.  The other kids noticed it, but not Grandson. 

To break the tension, I asked the girl, “What was your first clue?”  Fortunately, everybody laughed, though Grandson wasn’t sure why that was funny.  Me, neither, in retrospect, but it broke the tension and gave them a graceful out.  We all gathered our coats and left the theater.

I’ve thought about this interchange several times over the last few days.  About how I had (still have) the same inability to fit in with my peers in social settings. 

Like Donovan, I found (find) it easier to relate to people either much younger or much older than I.  I fall all over myself with people in my age group, both men and women, frequently missing cues that tell me I’ve committed a faux pas and need to shut the heck up, three minutes ago!

Like Donovan, too, I didn’t (don’t) always understand what just happened to break the connection.  However, I’ve since learned to recognize that there has been a break.  My usual response is to withdraw, not participate.  I find it easier to do that than to continue struggling to fit in.  No doubt, I’ve lost out on some valuable experiences by not struggling onward, but sometimes it just hurts too much to try.  Fortunately for Grandson, he hasn’t given up; he valiantly carries on. 

I continue to put my foot – uh, make that feet – in my mouth when dealing with my peers and have left behind me a trail of baffled could-have-been-friends.  In the process, some of them have labeled me “odd-duck”, “strange-bird” or, more recently, “quirky”.  It suggests that I’m too different.  I can’t tell if they’re teasing me or not, but the sting remains, regardless.

When that happens, I “pull in my horns,” as the I Ching advises when you’ve gone too far in your dealings with others.  The image I have when I read that expression is of a snail pulling in its eye stalks, then retreating into its shell, which I too often do.

I hope I can learn why I retreat, why I “step in it” in the first place, and how to repair the damage I may have done so that I may help Grandson find an easier way to navigate through life.  People like us, he and I, are in the minority, and as such, we are the ones who must make the effort to adapt, to change who we are inside, so that we may fit in.  At least, fit in better, because there are some very good things about us, because of the way we are, that would be terrible to lose.

For us and for the rest of the world.

On the Eve of a New Year

Dawn this morning was met with a clear sky and 40F degrees, balmy weather for our zone and for this time of year.  When I went to bed last night, the cloudless sky, brightened by the waning moon, suggested there might be ice in the birdbath in the morning, but not so.  A friend out west wrote that it was going to be nippy in his area this week - around zero degrees.  Nippy, for me, is what it is outside this morning, but he comes from hardier stock than I, or else has adjusted to the deep freeze that is more usual there.

When I opened the back door to sniff the air, it reminded me of when I was in boot camp, at Bainbridge, MD, almost 44 years ago.  We were awakened around 5 each morning, hurried through morning showers, bed-making and mustering out on the tarmac prior to being marched over to the chow hall.  In January, this frequently meant facing biting winds from down the mountains, having our nose-hairs crackle with every intake of breath, and arriving with stiffened cheeks (all four of them) to stand in line outside until we could enter the hall.  This morning, the cold air racing into my lungs took me right back to 1969.

On this morning, grandson Donovan is getting ready for surgery.  He's having a septoplasty done, to repair a deviated septum and to remove a bone spur that is growing toward his eye.  He'll be under the knife for at least two hours, possibly longer.  The surgeon will have to break a couple of bones to remove the spur and widen/straighten the septum.  He's going to miss the 'pretty lights' this season.  We were scheduled to go last night, but he changed his mind and preferred to stay home and set up a gift he'd received from a friend yesterday.  It's a new game machine, an X-Box something.  After his surgery this morning, he isn't going anywhere for the rest of this week, so we'll have to catch the lights next year.

The day before the new year always finds me in a reflective mood, an old habit from the days of resolution writing, started when I was a pre-teen.  I don't write resolutions anymore, but the reviews of my life, past and future (hmmm, how does one re-view the future?), take up most of the day.

I found an envelope among my papers last week on which I had written the question, "Has my life lived up to my expectations?"  I cannot remember when I wrote that, nor can I recall ever having expectations for my life.  Certainly, I must have; just can't remember them this morning.

Must be that frosty air.

I sincerely hope all of you whose blogs I read, and who have been kind enough to visit/comment on mine, have a new year better than the one we are leaving behind.  Much joy and happiness!

Christmas Ramblings

(Ramblings in the sense of musings, following random thoughts, not actually walking about the neighborhood or woods.  More detritus.  Long post, skip it if you like - I won't know.)

I have been wished a Merry Christmas, received hopes that I'll have a good one, by many this season, most of them friends, or, at least, friendly acquaintances; all such good wishes are sincerely appreciated and remembered. One stranger said to me last evening, as I was scraping snow off my truck before heading home, and he was headed to a church across the street, that he hoped I would have a happy holiday.  He sounded as though he truly wished me a few moments of happiness.  For some reason, I was deeply moved by his wish, and would have asked to hug him, had I not been so inhibited.  There was a touch of melancholy in his voice, and a tenderness unexpected under the circumstances.  A gift, received with gratitude and treasured for its sincerity.

Tomorrow morning, a man I work with will, no doubt, ask if I had a good Christmas, in the same 'make-talk' way he asks how I am doing.  I used to try to answer him honestly, then realized he wasn't really interested in knowing, just acting a part he seems to think a man in his position needs to play.  Two weeks ago, when he asked me the same thing, I answered, "Fine as frog hair.  And you?"

"Well, good," he answered.  "I'm doing well, too."  Didn't bat an eye, lift an eyebrow, or in any other way acknowledge there was anything different being exchanged.  I think I could have told him I'd lost my right leg that morning and was standing there bleeding to death, and he would have said, "Well, good.  I'm doing well, too."

So, what will I tell him tomorrow?  About the stranger in our parking lot from the night before Christmas?

Will I tell my boss of the young hawk that for the last two days has alighted in trees outside my back door and called to its parents? That sat in the trees, ignoring my walking about trying to spy him, until a parent finally answered and he flew off?

It is so rare to hear young hawks, or adults, come to think of it, in my yard. I know there is a mated pair that live in a neighbor's trees, behind my property. This summer, one of the parents was calling in a shrill, persistent manner - sounded almost like a rabbit's distress cry, which is why I went to the backdoor to see if a feral cat had caught one of the babies from the warren back at the barn. Instead of a cat, I found an adult Cooper's hawk covering something larger than a baby rabbit, and grey, held tightly in its talons. The hawk looked at me, but stayed put, crying out again. I was only a few feet from the bird, but I froze in step, and it tolerated my presence. As I stood still, another bird, a Cooper's, but with juvenile markings, flew right in front of my face. I felt the wind from its wings, was almost touched by its flight feathers. What a thrill! What joy, to come so close to 'touching the wild.'

And then, to have (I am certain) that same juvenile hawk, its breast still streaked with teardrop-shaped spots of russet-brown, come visit me at this bleak time, lightening my mood by stirring those summertime memories.

Still another gift, for which I also am grateful and which also is treasured.

Will I tell him that the annual bonus I received went to repair my truck, instead of getting a gift for my grandson, and food for our holiday dinner?  Will I tell him the sadness I felt when I had to explain the situation to Donovan, and the heartbreak that made me cry when he said, "It's okay, Nanny.  I know these are hard times for you.  It doesn't matter."  This boy, for he is most of the time a young boy, emotionally and socially, lives for Christmas and all the trimmings. That childlike anticipation and joyfulness on his part has helped me get through some very tough holidays in the last few years.  This child, albeit a young man of 20 years, hindered in his life by autism and the ignorance of those not afflicted with or affected by this incurable disorder, wanted me not to feel sad.  

Another gift, received with deepest gratitude and treasured beyond measure because of the concern and love with which it was given.

When I went over to their apartment this morning for brunch, he asked if we were going to be able to go see all the "pretty lights," like we always do.  I assured him we would, but I'd have to wait until I received my paycheck tomorrow, and put gas in the truck.  We usually go after Christmas dinner, which should have been tonight, but the Jimmy ate my bonus.  We put off Christmas until this coming Sunday, so we'll go through the neighborhoods looking at lights then.  And we will stop for hot chocolate - maybe twice, this year.  (Yes, Ken, we still do the "pretty lights" thing, with Donovan doing your part.)

If he asks me tomorrow, I think I will tell my self-involved boss that I probably have had the best Christmas of my life.

"Well, good!  I am doing well, too."