If you lived here, there are things you would know

You'd know that when the February air

gets cold enough, much

much colder than zero, a wide halo

of crystals forms around the sun

glistening like a muted rainbow.  The sky, too

pales on the coldest days, thins

out into a breakable boneblue.

The buses don't run, fuel thickens

in the lines, but the secretary calls each

family to assure us that the school day

will proceed.  You'd know the morning voices

of the married couple who own the local AM

radio station.  Her laughing voice tries 

to steer him from politics, and she never forgets

a celebrity's birthday.  If you lived here

you'd know that the sound of a line of cattle

shuffling across a frozen white field 

is like the sound of running water,

a warm sound that makes you stop

in momentary confusion.




You'd know the clipped sound of  axe blade
splitting a log of lodgepole,

the precise heft of a perfect
downward swing as you fill

the woodbox.  Or the fitting of burls
and knots together

like puzzle pieces in the body of the stove
to make it burn tight and hot.  You'd fight

frozen water lines only to a point

because by now you know that sometimes

it is just too goddamn cold to thaw.

On your morning commute, you'd watch

through your cracked windshield, 

the etched ridgeline of the Pioneer Mountains 

grow rosy with morning and know that,

for a moment,

you are peeking into some other 

wild and desolate world.

a week in the desert - portraits 4/52

They love having bare legs in January.

                           *                                              *                                             *
And climbing trees in parking lots.  Always.

outtakes, portraits 3/52

Sometimes the outtakes tell the story best.

looking for runaway horses: portraits 2/52

* * *

new year: portraits 1/52

Once in awhile I get lucky behind my camera, and I take a picture of one of my girls that really captures some part of who she is.  I'm planning to post weekly portraits of each of them here.  

Fearless sledder.

Skeptical sledder.

Sorting cows on Christmas

Later, after the sky has changed

from silver 

with a rim of pink

lacing the Ruby Mountains

to a pale airy blue,

we shuffle from pajamas

into jeans and carhartts

and leave the warmth 

of the wood stove for the cold

bluegold of the day.  We sort

the three oldest calves 

into a new pen, leave them

with a bit of grain to ease

the transition.  They watch us

from behind long frosted lashes,

as we leave them 

to their new home.

For me, the day that follows

Christmas morning has never looked

quite like this.  As a child

my family went skiing after presents,

or my sister and i began to pack

for our cross-country flight

the next morning to visit our dad.

I still feel somewhat unaccustomed to

the life of a farmer, the serious

need of the animals waiting for you.

The responsibility of taking 

good care.  I am even less prepared

for my own willingness to trade in

my perceptions of what a perfect holiday

should look like, to walk through cold

sunny fields to do the work of a rancher

on Christmas.  But I am willing, and I 

continue to be surprised by my ability

to stretch 

and become someone

I never knew I could be. 

This  year I was very aware

of the fluidity of tradition.  

Most of our Christmas storage bins

stayed unopened in the basement.

Instead, simplicity.  Fewer decorations,

few gifts, less stuff.  More time

and space for the meaningful

bits of our days, the elemental.

Wood for warmth, candles for light,

meals grown and raised

entirely on our own land.

And I keep waiting for the let down,

the post-holiday low after 

so much anticipation.

But I'm starting to realize

it's not coming this year.

That I am ready to move forward

into the new year, into the heart 

of winter, with a new kind of trust

in the rightness of my days.

the pictures I didn't take

It snowed last night.  Even when you know

to expect it, there is something so surprising

about waking up in a world that looks so different

than the one you fell asleep in.

My parents have both asked me in the last few days;

have you been writing about all of this?

And I haven't.

I've put together phrases in my head

and I've thought a lot about writing

as my imagined version of the next year

shifts and remakes itself.

I haven't taken pictures either, though

I have all these images in mind

of pictures I didn't take 

over the last eight weeks.

The image of myself

standing at the bathroom sink

holding the test and breathing

out one quiet expletive 

as I watched the tiny screen change.

Or the list of names

held to the refrigerator with a magnet, 

written in Amelia's neat

handwriting.  The soft fleece

of a tiny sweater that I'd packed away

years ago.  Smiling and 

thinking how I hadn't planned

to need it again.

Or sitting in the the waiting room,

knowing before anyone else did

that something wasn't right, 

that the tiny ocean I carried inside

was a much quieter place

than it should have been.

Or the way my body refused

to loosen its grip, and the strange

days of waiting for an ending.

I am raking leaves and waiting to miscarry.

I am splitting firewood and waiting to miscarry.

I am lying awake in bed waiting to miscarry.

Then finally the surgery,

the sweet nurses who said they were sorry,

the white round lights of the operating room,

the bits of memory wiped clean with anesthesia,

that slowly resurfaced

hours or days later.

Or thinking it was all finally over

the moment my dr. called to tell me

there could be dangerous cells

that were left behind, there will be 

testing and more testing 

ahead.

How do you feel?

Really, the simplest words are best.

Sad.

Mad.

I don't know.

I'm reminding myself that now is not the time

for grand decisions

but all I want is for something to change,

it feels like not enough

to simply pick up

where my life left off

in October.

I have the utmost faith in time.

I know I will feel differently in a week,

or a month.  But I'm trying to tell myself

that's it's okay to not let this go yet.

As my friend, Sarah, wrote me, I need 

"to sit and feel what I'm feeling - let it

weave and wave its way out."

The snow is still falling,

a bit lighter now.

Just this, stopping to put it all

into words

was what I needed.

To give these weeks the weight they deserve,

to hold them until 

they are not so heavy

and I can carry them

with something like grace.