So cold so cold so so so so cold...

How cold is cold is cold is cold is cold? It’s just

way way way way way way way too cold. :)

Too cold to hold the steering wheel, even with padded mittens!

So cold that fingertips burrrrrrrrn

So cold that the nose –if exposed-- quickly turns the pink of a rose.
Only stalwart birds venture out to the feeders!

Chimneys pipe out circles of hot breath.

People bundle up in so many layers of hats and scarves and hoods

that you cannot tell who they are. 

Cars don’t start

or if they do,

they groan

and squeak

in all of their metal joints

when you turn the ignition.

But then

comes a morning

like this one, the sky

as clear as blue crystal

You sigh and

you say

oh well the air might be as fierce as white cold fire out there

but it’s still one grandly beautiful day.

SNOW POEM

As blank as this white screen

is the view outside my window.

Snow falling, snow blowing,

mounding higher and higher

on every surface.

Is it me? Or do you find

that the perfect whiteness

of a blank winter page

strikes up some anxiety?

As if we were still in school

and no matter that we didn’t

know what the hell we were

supposed to be writing,

we still somehow had to fill the

white sheet of lined paper

with our brightest ideas.

Today I stand beside the window

And force myself to slow

Down down down

to match the falling snow.

The only motion is that of

the flakes

pillowing 

in steep angles

 to the ground.

It being Saturday

There is

Nowhere to go

Nothing to do

Except fill the bird feeders

and build a fire in the

woodstove and read a book

or look out the window

or write poetry and

snap photographs of the snow.

The End of Friendship

As odd as it may seem,

The dream is never the

Dream is the dream,

And in it we share the

Crisp dark curtain

of certainty that I

want  no part of

her friendship

which went amiss

Is this why I dreamt

About her?

After the dream, I wake up

And cannot go back to sleep.

I keep thinking about the

Dream and the last time we spoke, I told

Her I did not want to

Befriend her any more.

This severed tie

Is weighing on me

Obviously

I could see her pale blue eyes

That sometimes were sea green.

I could say I miss her,

But between you and me

I would be lying.

There unable to get back to

How dare she interrupt

My sleep?

She messed up she

ACTUALLY MISSED
MY FRIEND’S

Wedding would

You believe it?

She was always

Self-centered

But this

Was

Way

Too

Much

To take.

Sky Poem

Outside the window,

the sky doesn’t doubt its

color for a moment, 

nor does it ever

moan any complaints.

Above the dark horizon,

the sky has a soft, golden glow,

ever so lightly dusted in pink.

The gold fades imperceptibly into

the pale blue of the winter sky.

The sky is poised on

the cusp of the evening.

The day has passed by and the sky

Has done its share, producing beauty,

While I have not smiled or

appreciated it nearly enough.

Tomorrow I vow that I will make it a point to

sit and stare into the sky.

and still more paintings!

My paintings are starting to take over the house!

More Paintings

For more information about these paintings, or to see another recent painting, go to January 6th's My Story post.

It's hard to meditate in a flood

Readers of this blog will recall that, after many many years meditating in one spot of the house, I changed locations.

This morning, meditating in a new location, I was smiling. I was calm. I was so happy that I had a new spot in which to meditate. I lit four candles and settled into my breathing.

But soon, I heard a strange noise. First I thought it was the wind whistling through the windows.

But soon enough I realized that the sound was like water. Water dripping. Water sloshing. Water? Where would the water possibly be coming from?

Ah, but the sound of water sloshing slowly seeped into my calm meditative mind.

I got up from my cross legged position, sitting on the floor. With the candles still burning, I decided to open the basement door.

Lo and behold, there was a small ocean in one corner of the basement.

A few weeks ago, we hired an energy expert to help find areas of the house where we were losing heat. The expert told  us that we needed to cover the dirt floor of our dungeon-like basement (the house is at least 100 years old.)

So they laid big sheets of white plastic over the dirt.  There was a leak from a pipe but it was just a drip, so we put a pail underneath the drip.

And then it snowed a few days ago and then came the rains.

And the flood in the basement. My poor husband started bailing out the basement with a pail. I wasn't meditating anymore.

I wanted to call the energy expert and have him fix my flooded basement. In fact we did call him and when he called back I told him I wanted to take care of the flood. He said the flood wasn't his responsibility.

So then we did what we always do when there is a crisis in the house: we call a wonderful handyman named Keith who has done a ton of work for us over the years.

In all the 36 years we have lived in this house, we have NEVER had a flooded basement. That's because any water coming into the basement seeped into the dirt floor.

Well so now Keith is in the basement with my husband, trying to assess the flood.

All I can say is, THANK  YOU GOD FOR KEITH. He always knows what to do, at least where our house is concerned.

Meanwhile, meditation was impossible. That calm smiling feeling was nowhere to be found.

Ah well, I breathe deep and say, tomorrow is another day.

New Paintings

The abstract painting classes I have been taking this past year were terrific and helped to inspire a number of new paintings. Some people have asked me if I intend to try to sell the work and I think the answer, at least for now, is no; if someone sees a painting they want to buy, I will sell it, but I am not going to hound galleries to take my work. I am pretty certain that would take all the pleasure out of painting.

My son Noah, who lives in Brooklyn, took several paintings with him when he moved into his apartment in Williamsburg, so that is my BROOKLYN GALLERY.  Several of my paintings are hanging on the walls of my husband's study. I've also painted for my daughter Jocelyn and her husband Evan, who live in Boston, and for daughter Lindsay, who lives out in Denver, and for both my nieces.

Over the next few days, I am going to post some of the paintings that have emerged from class. I have to put in a plug for the class, which is at the IS 183 art school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and another plug for the teacher, Arthur Yanoff, a highly accomplished painter whose work has been shown widely. He is a fabulous teacher!

White snow is a new blank page outside my window!

Perhaps it is the soft white silence of the snow falling outside my window

like a blank white page crying out for new words.

Or maybe it is the vivid dreams that I had last night
All I know is that I woke up in the dark, about 5:30 in the morning
feeling inspired to
make this New Year NEW.

An hour or so later,
going downstairs to meditate
I knew that I had to
find another spot in the house
in which to meditate.

This may not sound like a particularly wild and crazy thing to do.
But you have to understand, I have been meditating
in the same spot beside the huge living room fireplace
for years and years and years. Too many to count.

Long ago, the spot took on a life of its own.

When we had our dog, Bear, and he was really ill,
he would go to the meditation table and just curl up there.
Whenever my daughter's dog Milo

comes to pay a visit,
and I am making my coffee in the kitchen,
that smart little dog heads into the living room and sits on the sofa behind my meditation table.
He goes for the meditation table
before I do!!

Anyway, this morning I said,
ENOUGH.
I have to find another spot in the house that faces East
(which is the direction you want to face when meditating.)
You need to set your candle there,
And see how it feels.

And so I did, I sat down in the dining room, and placed my candle on the window sill,
like this.

The flame of the candle was reflected three times, through the glass windows.
And outside the window
the snow mounded higher and higher
and when I finished meditating I said
to myself,

This really is a NEW YEAR.

Here's to health and peace and happiness in 2014!!