Orchid

Life on the hill

Orchid

We spent most of Monday watching the wind and staying inside. Our neighbor, Peggy Quinn, wrote that they were staying inside to hold the house down. It did feel like the kind of wind that could push our place down the hill, but the only damage was a few more shingles ripped off the garage roof and the trash cans hurled down into the little gully that the stream runs through at the foot of the driveway. We didn’t even lose power. But it was quite a show to watch. Before daylight, I could hear it and I could see the reflections on the big western window bending as the wind slammed against it. Once it was light, I could see huge clouds of powdered snow lifted off the ground and high into the air, sometimes vertically, sometimes horizontally, but mostly in whirling spirals. Relentless, it blew all day, mostly over 30 miles an hour. The meteorologists can explain it, but it takes a psychologist to account for the impact on the soul. Wind is so big and its power so dominant. There is something compelling about watching it rage. I thought of mad King Lear, tossed by the winds inside him and around him. Unlike Lear, the storm outside just makes me more aware of how calm my inner life is these days. The huge wind makes me feel how small I am, and how grateful I am to be safely inside a sturdy home with a husband, a dog and a kitten for company.

I ventured out only twice, to take shivering Charlie to the barn. I tucked him inside my coat, but he gave me that – why are you doing this to me – look. He was quick about his business in the frigid barn. Thank goodness Hazel Tov uses a litterbox.

It was still windy Tuesday, and still in the frigid teens, but it felt calm compared to Monday, and we were out and about doing errands. After some melting weather last week everything is frozen hard again, and with a coating of new new snow, it’s treacherous. Walking out to the car the snow and ice crunched underfoot. The snowplow on Gulf pushed a windrow across our driveway and it froze into pretty solid wall. On Gulf itself the ruts cars had left during the muddy thaw hardened into frozen tracks, making driving a bit of a challenge.

And now, Wednesday afternoon, the wind is stilled and the sky is white with snow. It’s predicted to go on through the night, with 6 to 9 inches of accumulation. I’ve postponed a meeting I had scheduled in Oneonta this evening, and we are home for the duration. Charlie is curled asleep in his bed. Hazel Tov is napping on the back of the couch. The snow drifts gently down, the fury of Monday’s wind vanished.

There was talk at the gym today of winter fatigue. The cars are almost all coated with grey road crud, and by late February people seem to have stopped even trying to keep them clean. I’m satisfied if the windshield is clean enough to see through. The entry way here on Sunnyhill is filled with dirty boots. Mary cleans the snow crud off the floors every two weeks, but I’ve given up trying to keep it clean in between. All of my pants have snow crud lines across the back of the mid-calf where my legs touch the dirty doorway of the car getting in and out. There was surely a time in my life when the winter dirt would have had me compulsively cleaning, but this is not that time. My compulsion for order and cleanliness seems to have faded as I rounded 70. I don’t suffer from winter fatigue. I’ve surrendered to the dirt and cold, to the layers of clothing, to the extra tasks of keeping warm. I’m sure I will be glad to have the fabulous variety of the summer farmers’ market, but I am not weary of beets and cabbage and kale and mushrooms.

On the edge of the bathtub, next to the great north facing window, a lovely pinkish purple orchid Marlene gave me back in Palo Alto is blooming again, with upwards of twenty buds still growing. The splash of color is riveting against the white landscape outside. With the challenge of transporting plants across the country last winter, I only brought a half dozen of my orchids. This is only the second one to bloom in its new home. It, too, has become a New Yorker, accustomed to snow and cold and wind thumping against its window.

One Response

  1. Peter regan says:

    Nice post. Watch that ice! I don’t miss the Shacktown wind. Back to Altos tomorrow am then hiding for a week as Carnival shuts down the country. Then the kids go back to school.

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