January

    

 I saw this today on a friend's FB post and thought it worth copying and keeping here.   

 Patricia Highsmith                The Price of Salt    

January.   It was all things.   And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. J  anuary was moments, and January was a year.   January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory.   Every human action seemed to yield a magic. January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester's bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define.

iWe continue here in arctic cold,  single digits overnight and maybe up to 20 degrees for an hour or so mid afternoons, if the sunshines.  No snow,which is  fine with me because it saves me $$.  I don't have to pay for plowing my driveway.  Still some mounds of snow remain in small patches, they are frozen ice mii hills.  Talking with a friend yesterdzy znd we agreed, " well  we just have to endure."  That's similar to living as a widow, we endure, we carry on, we survive.  

Today is Thursday, January 8.  But it took me until nearly 10:15 AMto realize that.  For some reason I woke up sure it was Friday and so began my day.  Since I do not eat meeat on Fridays I got a few shrimp out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, intending on making some pasta in garlick sauce with lemon , capers, and the shrimp.  I was astonished to figure out it is only Thursday but that is going to be my dinner anyway since the shrimp are thawing.  How did I lose a day?  There's a term for losing track of time, "time blindness", and in it's extremes it could be problematic.  Mostly if I lose track of time it's while I continue doing something like reading, going through photos, gardening, whatever that has me so engrossed that time flew by.  And it's later than I thought.   But never before have I lost a day!  Then again I was so happy that I gained an entire day back!  Oh it's these simple things that keep me going.  

I should be downstairs finishing up putting away the last of the Christmas decor but here I am at laptop, sharing my thoughts.  Tomorrow is another day, I tell me. And no one contradicts me, nor does anyone ask me what I'm doing now.   

PS  I cannot figure out why this post is not just plain text but outlined in white??? I'm tired of trying to fix it so here it goes.  

               

New Year 2025

 

And we are here in the arctic polar of southeast MN.  Only one wretched snowfall that lasted all day last month and there are still a few piles of  frozen snow patches from where the plow shoved it alongside the driveways.  But it is brutally cold.  On days like today when at least we are blessed with the glow of sunshine it appears  to be far warmer than it is,  today we will not even reach 20 degrees.  Yet it beats those drearier days of grey overcast and still cold.  This is not the kind of weather I ever wanted to spend my winters in, especially alone, but here I am.  

I try to find things to thank the Lord for daily, sometimes it is for just keeping me warm and safe. 

Me,  Christmas Eve
after mass home in pj's.  

Somedays I am just as content that I do not have to go out in this cold.  I keep busy inside and now as Epiphany arrives tomorrow, it will be time to begin to take down some of the holiday décor that  I did get out so that it would not be dreary.  I restrained myself because I do not like putting it away, that was a task Jerry always did so well.  I didn't appreciate it as much then, it was just what he did.  He always was more patient than me.  How I miss that man.  As I told him and as he believed I am doing OK,  I am ok financially much as prices rise, etc.  I'm not strapped.  But the  being alone for days with  contact only of phone calls  or texts is not fun.  Never expected to be so solitary.  It has been a challenge learning to live just with me.  Warmer weather is better because I can be outside  busy, digging, weeding, puttering.  But the winter is when I resume domestic activities  which I still do not relish, like polishing all the kitchen cabinets, a task I dragged out over a couple weeks this time.  I remind myself to be glad and thankful that I have the strength and stamina to do all this still.  

I did not intend to start my 2025 posts here with what is sounding like widow's lament.   But I have and now I do not have enough time before getting ready for Saturday evening mass to ponder and edit.  Saturday mass, sometimes it is the hilite of my social activity for the week.

So we mark another New Year, I have wished a happy one, automatically to many.  I will try to make it so for me too.