MID WINTER BLUES

Winterbound in the midwest, it’s like good news from the dentist. You won’t be needing pain killer and he’s not standing on your chest, both hands inside your mouth with drill and chisel, excavating. No. But you are still in the chair, and he’s still there beside you with only one hand and a mirror in your mouth. The bright light is burning up your retinas through tightly closed eye lids and the good news is that your insurance pays for most of the cleaning. You walk out the door, licking teeth, discovering tender spots where the hygienist nicked the gum, a small plastic bag in one hand with a couple of new, soft bristle tooth brushes, a roll of floss and a travel tube of sensitive tooth paste, and the appointment card for the next cleaning in six months in the other hand. Could have been a lot worse but it is necessary. Necessary, it’s still the dentist and I don’t like being there. I feel much better when I get out of the parking lot, on my way to something more satisfying. 

Winterbound is like that. I don’t mind the cold. Winter, it is what it is and you dress for it. We are not prisoners. But I need a better reason to go outside than when I was 50. What bothers me this time of year is the dark, late morning and the dark, early evening. I keep telling myself that the changing seasons are good, and they are. Each one has its upside. But this year in particular, I’m hunkered down for the duration. I am hanging an art show in March, showing my photographs. In the end, I decided to make my own frames and do my own mounting. It isn’t painful and I enjoy putting it all together but I don’t get to be on the road. For the past decade I have been able to go, whenever I felt like it. This time last year I was in south Florida. If it’s not Louisiana or the Great Lakes it would be Canada or the west coast. There has always been something about being in motion that meets my need. Even now I get a little of that satisfied in the pool, between 6:30 and 8:00 in the morning. The black line down the middle of my lane has seams between the tiles and they slip by, out of sight as I move toward the wall at the far end. Alternating, blue and white floats on lane divider cables converge in front of me and they pass, almost like power poles on the road side, riding my bicycle. I know that I’m the one moving . The perception is complicated but the effect is not. I am in motion. I need that and winter time offers few opportunities. 

Weather has always been hard to predict. Winter-cold and summer-hot aren’t taken for granted like once-upon-a-time. Three days ago I was outside in short sleeves, all afternoon. We have global warming, nobody argues the fact anymore but the drama has just moved on to the details. Are we, people collectively, at least partially responsible for the acceleration in warm up? There is no doubt among climatologists around the world but politicians and others who have something to gain, one way or the other, are still butting heads. It seems to me that if you add carrots and potatoes to the kettle, you will surely disturb the broth. We have been adding to and stirring the atmosphere with damning results for two centuries. One of my heroes, George Carlin put it so well when he chided environmentalists, wanting to save the earth: “The Earth is self healing and it’s doing very well. We can not destroy the earth. All of their worries about the health of the planet are misguided. But people on the other hand; people are in deep sh#!#!#.” 

So it’s winter and I’m stuck in the big city. I keep busy and sleep pretty well considering all the things that distract me. I’ve got a big pot of green chile cooling in the garage for a chili cook-off at church tonight. This makes a lot of sense; pay $25 to enter my chile, spend another $50 on ingredients, so 150 people can pay $10 each to sample and vote on the best in three categories where the winners get $10 each. Catholics have nothing on Unitarians when it comes to raising money. But I will have tongue in cheek when the faint hearted, chili wannabes ask if my stuff is “Hot”. I will tell them, ‘It’s not “Hot” as chili goes. But it leans heavy on the “Warm”. I tried something different, used two slabs of baby back ribs that had been in the freezer for a while and two pounds of breakfast sausage, Serrano and Hatch green chilies with cumin and oregano turned out just right for me. I’ll be happy if there is a lot left over for me to bring home. I’d rather have my own green chili than the winners share of prize money.

I’ve got picture frames to paint and mats to cut. Need to have more photos printed to size and I have to work in the kitchen, on my island top. That requires a kitchen cleaning; no food stuffs at all, on any surface that could be transferred to an expensive mat. So mid winter blues are more about moving on than dwelling on the weather.