Yesterday, the women in my yoga class, each of whom has been through a lifetime of tribulations, were the most upset I've ever seen them: "Can't stand it; not another storm coming; worst winter in my 25 years here; so sick of it; need some sun!"
This morning, as forecast, it was snowing heavily when I woke up. The ground was white. Same old, same old. But by the time I came back from feeding the hens, the snow had started to melt into the brown and muddy ground. And that's what it did all day long--snow and melt, snow and melt--until evening, when the air cooled and the snow started sticking again.
There is nothing gloomier than leaden skies, a plunging barometer, and snow on brown ground. Even the dogs seemed resigned to staying indoors. As for me, this was a "count your blessings" kind of day. The kind of day where your very eyelids droop with languor, your mind feels wrapped in cotton wool, and all you can do to keep despair at bay is to repeat the litany of blessings:
I have a house.
I am not hungry.
I have three dogs.
I have six hens.
I got a handwritten letter from a school friend in which she said, "Can you believe that we are the elders now?"
The state of Vermont is not at war.
The rosemary bush is still alive.
I remembered my mother's old admonition when I used to moan about teenage woes: "You have nothing to complain about. Just think, you could be a quadriplegic." But that only used to make me feel worse, thinking about all the quadriplegics. So I don't add that to my litany.
I'm doing my best to be Zen about this, to acknowledge my mood and observe it impartially, as I would observe a school of fish passing by in an aquarium.
Post script to yesterday's post about Pileated Woodpeckers: here is a photo my husband took a while back of a tree sculpture made by a Pileated W., with Lexi shown for scale.
