A Tiny Slice of Pie

or Seizing the Moment

If summer were pie (bear with me here) it would be a large one, made with the season's abundance, and served by a generous hand.  You would fill your plate and enjoy every bite, but by the time you'd reached the end of the slice you might not be paying quite as much attention as you did for that first glorious taste.  When the same generous hand offered you another overflowing serving, you would keep eating gamely, because it's so delicious, and you really do like pie.  But once you had emptied your plate again, you might just be ready to be done with pie for a while.

If winter were pie, it would be a small one, made with rare and expensive ingredients.  It would be served by someone counting both cost and calories, a tiny sliver of pie dwarfed by a landscape of a plate.  You would take small bites of the enjoyment offered you and pause between each bite, drinking a sip of coffee perhaps, or admiring the table setting, so that you could stretch out the enjoyment as long as possible.  Each bite would be its own memory.

I  know that technically winter hasn't arrived yet, but last week's cold snap finally discouraged the Wild Thing autumn sage from blooming any more, and in my book, that makes it winter.  In the mornings the cold drives me inside before I've finished my coffee on the patio (besides which, it's darkish out), and since my garden is shaded in the afternoon, it's too chilly to spend much time there after work (besides which, it's darkish out).   So instead of the leisurely hours of reading or moseying or crossword-puzzle solving or writing or observing or photographing, there are only tiny slivers of time to enjoy outside and try to make the most of.   (As, indeed, is the case for most of us in the northern hemisphere about now.)

Weekends are another matter, and on sunny mornings, the garden is still a fine place to drink a cup of tea and meander around the circle path to see what's changed during the week.  As I was admiring the rumpled-fabric texture of the dried sand cherries and thinking how glad I was not to have to iron them, I was reminded that December's beauty is fragile and evanescent in any case—that no matter how much time is available for its enjoyment, the enjoyments themselves are short-lived and precious.  As my camera hand neared the cherries, it brushed one of the ragged leaves, which went tumbling; it nudged a branch and sent a whole flock of leaves fluttering to the ground.  I cupped a cherry in my hand, and its flesh crumbled, leaving only the bare seed dangling from the stem.   The whole experience had a certain "oops" factor to it; I didn't really mean to hasten the process of winter.  On the other hand, each of those moments had its own tiny, individual piquancy that has caught, separately, in memory.  I am grateful to have been out at the right time to see (er, make) those leaves fall.

That's the real problem I have with winter:  opportunity.   In summer, with all those outdoor hours stretching ahead, the odds of experiencing something amazing or intriguing or entertaining or breath-taking are fairly high.  In winter, if you're not there when they're handing out the pie, you're just not going to get any.  So you hold your plate out hopefully every chance you get, and presumably, at some point, it will be filled.

With a tiny slice of wonder that you had better savor, one intense bite at a time.

Refreshment

or Cleansing the Palate

This is the snowstorm that closed both interstate highways in town for several hours on Thanksgiving morning.  To be fair, black ice was the real culprit, and to be even more fair, the 25-car pile-ups caused by the black ice are what really got in the way.  The native Coloradoan/transplanted Vermonter in me snorted a bit at all the drama, but then, I wasn't out on the roads until well after the sun came out.

I don't recall snow even being in the forecast for Thanksgiving, so waking up to a little dusting of it—not to mention the overcast skies and the sight of the Sandias blanketed in clouds (clouds!)—was a lovely surprise.  Normally the color palette here leans toward the warm side; I think of it as the visual equivalent of local flavors, whether the earthy spiciness of red chile or the smoky pungency of green.  The cool colors of snowfall are like a lemon ice—refreshing, cleansing to the palate, and deeply appreciated in small servings.

Wandering the garden on Sunday morning after the holiday away, I encountered more fall-blooming crocuses, this time in bud.  Apparently, not only the leaves but also the stems show up late in the growing process—the buds arise almost directly from the ground. (Aha! I will know what to look for next year.)

In spring, I would probably interpret this shade of lavender as a harbinger of warmth; in late fall, hard on the heels of what we might as well call a snowstorm, it strikes me instead as cool bordering on icy, as a refreshing "verge of winter" purple (destined someday to become a Crayola color, mark my words). The color venations in the bud seem as precisely etched as the edges of a snowflake.

As one of my friends is fond of saying, "We create our own realities." I might not go quite that far, but I would say that our interpretation of reality depends a lot on context: a storm that wouldn't even be a blip on the radar in Colorado brings life to a halt in New Mexico; clouds that would be oppressive elsewhere are a pleasant change of pace in the desert; colors that sing of warmth in February murmur of cold in November.

A palate cleanser only works in context; you don't start a meal with the lemon ice. I've never known anyone who really stopped to think about it who didn't find it eerie how little of their perception is based on unshakable truth and how much is based on circumstance; maybe that's why I have an odd liking for ex-pat communities, who encounter that truth every day and are willing to be thrown off stride by it.  In a way, living with chronic illness is like living in a foreign country, because things you used to take for granted no longer work in familiar ways:  flights of stairs that never used to phase you suddenly become epic obstacles; accomplishments that used to come easily—like writing a simple sentence—become Herculean labors.  Everything takes more effort than it "should," if a state of health is your context.  In the context of illness the moments of refreshment are exquisite, like a holiday visit with family, or a crocus in November.

Like a snowstorm in the desert.