His hand on my neck. A middle of the night wayfarer cuddling. Three year old cold feet, climbing under the quilt with me. “I sleep in Momma’s bed,” he says sleepily. Crunch of  gravel and ice, a warm gifted day, taking me out into the wood smoke, manure-tinged air, whiff of icy earth. The sun setting shards of sharp sparkle skittering across the straggling snow. There’s something about January. Its sound of silence, quiet under pinning of a humming low, a gentle song. Its own smells, its cadence and chorus. There’s lots of pockets in January. In sweaters, coats, pockets of ice and snow, little bits of fog and sunshine tucked away like my car keys, old receipts, mittens, and lemon lime lip balm. There’s flashes of golden, angled-pieces of fodder rising from fields, the browns, murkiness, grays, and black shadows. Fire flutters, not unlike the busy feeders, ding dinging, clanking, crackling as I pour sawdust bits into the stove. The smell of wood shavings rising brings me immediately to the sun shafts on the floor of the Amish carpenter shop, Amos and I stood in last summer. Drinking in the smell, I feel in two places simultaneously, at home in front of the warm fire, and at the shop, the little dog running around my feet. A sweet Amish child’s eyes staring up at me from under her navy kerchief.  January sharpens the distance between outdoors and in, summer, its door wide open, all of it home, the natural world welcoming and friendly-like. A careful purposefulness is needed to come out into this new, bitter world. This January room. A world foreign, strange, yet essential for the renewal of the earth and its growings and groanings. A watering, a deep rest, a sigh. We too, find ourselves at rest, a rooting and watering deeply, often in-between pages of poetry and prose. A soaking in music, hot drinks, a pause. A conscious sound of silence. Metaphoric silence of course, with our beautiful gaggle of geese here who forgot to fly south. But a season that naturally draws close, simmers, sips, a mind that knows it grows through fallowness. We rest to awake. We drink to quench. We sow to harvest. No matter the broken pipes, icy roads, cold hearts, January breathes of life to come. It takes only a moment to see through the fog, hail, to the gifts given all around. ❤

Quotes for Reflection ~

“The beautiful is as useful as the useful.” He added after a moment’s pause,” Perhaps more so.” Les Miserables – Victor Hugo p. 23

“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.” Jean-Paul Sartre

~