All this snow lying around still, like frosting on a gingerbread house. At the park when it’s still dark walking a path between the setting moon and rising sun. Bit by bit the snow receded, leaving splotches of black stains on the pavements where the leaves had expired, an all-around harried look. Random sprigs of fallen cedar, paw-sized pine twigs, moss pods tumbled down from the roof. Yet birds were singing from the rafters celebrating it all. And the grass was a new kind of green, an Irish green, a green for the ages. The earth, drunk on snow.

I made chicken stock and let it burble all day. Charlotte came downstairs at 12:45 and went for the cereal. I said we could tie the bag around your head so you could eat it like a horse and then she countered and went in the room with Dawn who’d been doing a puzzle all morning. I made polenta from corn meal that expired in 2021 and checked the box for bugs but there were none. And moved about 13 bags of wildflower seeds to the front porch; their best buy was 2023. Did seeds expire? 

Sometimes I’d get up from the sofa and there’d be a fake eyelash on the cushion looking like a smashed millipede. The kids wore these things but I never noticed. I floated the idea of getting my ears pierced to Charlotte and she asked what kind of earrings would I wear and I said gold hoops. Maybe we could make a date of it (she wanted to get her seconds done). Then she started naming all these other parts her friends were getting pierced, areas around the ear I’d never consider touching let alone decorating. Me, I wanted pierced ears more as a statement of a guy in his mid 50s who didn’t give a crap. Mine wasn’t much different from the other statements. I wasn’t sure if they reused the fake eyelashes but didn’t bother asking: they went in the trash with the smashed bugs and sofa lint.

We went to church, which always helped me feel better about myself. With it not being Easter or Christmas there weren’t a lot of people there and I liked that. We sat three rows back from the front and when it was time to stand and sing I did without trying to be cool. You learn to drop that at church. The whole gist was about your personal light and the fact the world didn’t give it to you so the world couldn’t take it away, which was like something Brian Eno had said about avoiding cell phones in the morning. Basically, whatever you got is in you and anything you consume is just going to detract from that. Hallelujah.

I got out the cheese with the bloomy rind, the Reblochon I smuggled from Europe, just like the recipe said. You fry the onions in bacon fat, add cubed waxy golden potatoes with a cup of white wine, garlic, fresh thyme and a pinch of nutmeg: then the crème fraiche and sliced cheese. Into the oven uncovered for 35 minutes. It’s so rich you need to eat a leafy salad afterwards, helps with digestion.

In the dim light of morning the receding patch of snow on the front lawn was like an arctic landmass fading. The snow had gone slushy and for the first time I could see what was happening underneath: the hellebores were almost blooming, the daphne odoras too. Sure we had six more weeks of winter but in the Pacific Northwest spring comes fast. I cut the vines back on the clematis and chopped more wood for kindling. We would normally be in southern California this time of year for the kids’ mid-winter break but would need to find a get-away without going away. The radio DJ ended his show by saying if you could choose between a million dollars and waking up tomorrow which would you pick? That’s why every day’s worth a million dollars, go out and live it.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Diary, Errata

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, humor, journal writing, pacific northwest