Soup

A longer day. Only by 30 seconds or so, but still. We had a couple of warm, clear days last week and it was a treat to see the sun, but for me, the bigger treat was seeing the clear sky at night and in the early morning. Venus is still spectacular, and there below it on the eastern horizon just before dawn Mercury and Jupiter were lined up. Here on the hill we have a huge bowl of sky over us, and relatively little light pollution, so a clear night is an awesome show. It had been overcast for many mornings in a row, and although I knew where to expect Venus, I had lost track of what else was going on in the morning sky. I don’t know the stars all that well, but even I knew that those two predawn lights were not where I would expect to see bright stars. So I checked my wonderful website for the birds’ eye view of the solar system, and I could see where Mercury and Jupiter were in their orbits relative to the earth, and why I could see them just before sunrise in the east. And of course, it got me thinking about how people understood what they saw in the night sky before we were all taught in schools about how the solar system works.

Understanding the steady stars with their repeating annual cycles seems reasonably straight forward. You could imagine it as a great painting overhead that turned each night and shifted through the year in a repeating pattern. But how to explain the moon, and harder still, how to explain those wandering stars? What stories could you create to explain them? What patience would you have to have to measure their positions – and even if you did, with a geocentric mental model their positions are incredibly hard to explain. It would be so much easier to invent tales of wandering gods than to do the math to explain their changing positions. And yet, people patiently figured it out for us, one generation of astronomers standing on the shoulders of those who came before, measurement by measurement, idea by idea. It’s an amazing accomplishment, yet mostly, we don’t think of it as a triumph at all. We just think of it as stuff that’s true, stuff we all know.

I had two perfect mornings of sky watching, and I was looking forward to seeing Mercury and Jupiter nearly in conjunction Friday morning, but it was not to be. Clouds got in my way. Friday was weirdly warm – in the fifties. The snow melted, except where it was especially deep or shaded in the woods. The neighbor’s pond had a layer of water on top of the ice. Charlie had had a tooth pulled on Thursday, so he wasn’t exactly up to frolicking in the grass on Friday, but he did get out in the evening for a good session of sniffing. We were not fooled by the little pause. And this morning we were back to cold and wind and snow. The warm interval left thin wet patches on the driveway and patio and steps, and in the morning freeze they turned treacherous. The thin coating of ice and snow crunched underfoot and I walked to the car very carefully. I was oddly glad to see the snow return. There is something so calming about the snowy landscape. Each tree branch has its own, perfect, thin white outline. The streams run nearly black between their white banks. And coming in from the cold is such a joy. When I open the inner door into the kitchen, the warmth of the house makes my whole body relax at once. There is a feeling of welcome, of safety that has no analogue in the warm months. We went to the farmers’ market in the morning and Jay made us two soups, one mushroom and a new acorn squash soup. The house has been full of the rich, complex smells all day. We are warm and safe, and there will be soup for dinner.

There is a sweet comaraderie in winter. We are all facing the same foe. In the busier summer, people may commiserate briefly about the heat or humidity, but it’s not the same bond. Summer weather can be an annoyance, but it isn’t a threat. When you arrive somewhere warm on a bitter cold day, you immediately relax into the room and the people already there recognize you as fellow warriors. We went to the Hartwick Restaurant for lunch today, and there were familiar faces: Silvio, the owner; Amanda, the young waitress; Frank and Mary, who hauled off much of our extra furniture. Most folks visit back and forth at the Hartwick, a casual and friendly place, almost a club. Silvio knows everyone, and makes connections among us. It’s a place for a little banter, a little shared feeling of us against the winter, and a huge pile of french fries with your hamburger.

The Hartwick Restaurant is one of the very few commercial enterprises in town. Another one, the sole bank, has just closed. Its solid brick building across the street from the Post Office sits empty now, its neon sign dark at night. It’s a big loss for Silvio, making his banking life more complicated. And it’s a big loss for the town. A bank gives a town a little stature, and a lot of convenience. Then too, it’s another empty building right in the center of town, and it seems unlikely it will be filled any time soon. It’s hard to imagine anyone driving through Hartwick and saying, gee, this looks like a great place to open a bakery, or a coffee house, or a shoe store, or an art gallery. The downside of living in a place where traffic is two cars at a stop sign is that there’s no reason for cars to come there or for people to linger. If I was young, I’d be thinking about leaving.

But I’m not young. I’m thinking more about the beauty of the winter sky at dawn and less about where to go for excitement. I’m thinking about acorn squash soup for dinner.