In Birdland, snow sifts silently out of a wool-colored sky. At the horizon, the sky is bright and only the bare shrubs at the edge of the field mark where the white field meets white sky. The snow mutes and layers the picture outside my window, steeling color from the covered landscape, so that I have to squint to see the green in the cedar tree and boxwood. I guess it is the same picture I have seen thousands of times, on any winter morning when the wind is low and the snow is ubiquitous. I've probably used similar words to describe the same picture in these letters, but that only points to the cyclical nature of most things.

My semester has begun its own cycle, and my life takes the oblong shape of trips to town. First the drive to town on sometimes treacherous roads, then the walk to campus. When I can remember, or spare the time, I try to keep to my dear friend, Michael's "five miles under" policy. I've read that at 60 mph, your gas consumption increases dramatically. Michael came up with all kinds of benefits of driving more slowly: "You can listen to the radio longer." But for me, a big one is safety. How old was I before I figured out that the faster I drive, the more likely I am to slide off the road into a ditch? I’m embarrassed to say. Yesterday I passed a black, Chevy pick up that had spun out off the road and up a hill, coming to rest next to some barbed wire fencing in a field of corn stubble. I drove on slowly, thinking of sailors passing a shipwreck and taking heed of the dangers.

Spinning Peace

Birdland is so cold that I have to dump ice out of the heated water dishes for the chickens and the dogs every morning. The dishes don’t work below a certain temperature, and I have to check throughout the day to make sure everyone has access to fresh water. The wind blows relentlessly from the west, and sculpts the snow with fierce brush strokes, writing its own winter wisdom or warnings across the prairie.

I don’t even want to stick my nose out the door, and only go out when I have to, preferring instead, to attend to interior projects—refinishing furniture and organizing closets, organizing my thoughts and trying to find some peace in our troubled land. My mind keeps returning to tragedies, both personal and national, and I can’t help but feel that things are never as simple as they seem. Only when we push through some of the contradictions, ambiguity and conflict can we find some wisdom, but this requires honesty and the courage for self-examination. This is much harder than choosing up teams, which always seem to have a “winner” and a “loser.” I think of our former president famously declaring to the world, “You're either with us or against us,” and I think we must find an alternate path to wholeness. I’ve heard a lot of comments about violent political rhetoric, and agree that it is dangerous, but it is not the only danger in our society. It seems to me that blaming a tragedy on one aspect risks losing sight of other dangers. The tragedy in Tucson was not only a failure of our leaders to project images of peace and understanding even in their disagreement, but also perhaps a failure of an educational system that allows children to grow up without the tools to engage in peaceful dialogue, a society that isolates people instead of welcoming them, a health care system that too often leaves illnesses untreated, especially mental illness, and laws that makes obtaining automatic weapons and a duffel bag full of ammunition so easy.

Today I’m tired and cold and lonely, and it’s all I can do to project peaceful thoughts. Instead I turn to others for wisdom and understanding. Betsy Jackson has a lovely blog at www.scratchingonpaper.blogspot.com called This Being Alive. She posts short vignettes with simple images, sometimes just a quotation. Karen Singer’s blog, The Prairie Year, at www.prairieyear.blogspot.com, walks us through the restored prairie and sculpture gardens at Meadowbrook Park, sharing the sights and sounds. Her generous photographs of what she finds there remind us to open our eyes to the natural world wherever we happen to be. Her meanderings are a meditation, which she shares with an open heart. Karen and Betsy are just two who know that words and images are important. They spin peace out into the universe, yet they have the courage to look at not only the puppies and kittens and baby chicks and spring flowers, but at difficult questions that don’t have simple answers, questions that may not have answers at all. They have the courage to look for truth, even when it’s painful.

I look out my kitchen window to see a squirrel digging in the snow. She pulls up a nugget and holds it with her paws up to her face, spinning and spinning it. It must be a walnut, though it is far from where it fell from the tree. Did she bury it under sunny skies? How does she remember where to find it again? She spins it, drops it in the snow, picks it up again, spins it some more. I watch her from the window, spinning my own nut, wondering how to crack it, and what I will find inside.

Acknowledge Truth; Spin Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She wants to approach life with an open-hearted curiosity. Maybe someday she will be able to do it.

Close Knit Community

In Birdland the sky is gray and the snow is spilling down again. The last cycle of snow and melt and re-freeze had left us with a bare yard and only the grays and tawny browns of a winter landscape. The fields and garden are dry, as if the freeze has squeezed out all the moisture. Yesterday I noticed the hackberries scattered all over the ground like currents in a bun. Did the wind shake them down, or did the trees just let go with the cold?

Now a flurry will add another layer to the wintertime landscape. The sky is leaden as far as I can see to the West, and it’s cold but not windy, so I expect by noon we’ll have a nice frosting on all the fences and a blanket for the yard.

Today I am rushing to get my work done because of two important visits. This afternoon is my knitting circle at the Steeple Gallery Coffee House—a weekly gathering of wonderfully creative and fun women who meet to knit and share and visit and drink coffee. It convenes on Fridays, so I can only come during semester breaks, making today’s visit even more special for its rarity. I’ve got a finished project to show—a felted knitting needle holder that I copied from Susan. But I need some advice, because my washing machine doesn’t agitate, which is necessary for the felting process. Mine is pretty, but not quite felted, and it doesn’t like to stand up on its own. Should I just wash it about twenty more times, or try to felt it by hand, or ask Susan to agitate it for me in her washer? When I told Barbara about the flower I was going to knit for a decoration, she dug up a crocheted flower she had cut off of an old sweater and gave it to me. Now when I look at my project, I think of my connections to both of these lovely women—something to be glad of in the gray days of winter.

The second visit is from some of my nieces and nephews. Once in awhile they converge at

Birdland for a holiday. Some are home from college; some are already back at high school. I like to bake for them. I’ve got cookies already made, and plans for pizza and scones, waffles for breakfast.

They are busy young people, and they won’t all be here, but I am grateful for any who can spare the time. They come to get out to the country and away from their routines, and though I know they love me, they come more to visit with each other. I’m happy to provide this venue and mostly stay out of the way. They energize me, and give me an excuse to get the house clean, make up the guest beds, and pull out the board games and the ping-pong table. Ellis will be glad for their company. My youngest is the last little bird in the nest, and he loves to hang out with his cousins.

The snow continues to fall in tight, tiny crystals that collect first in the packed down places in the yard, showing me where the dogs have trotted out a new path around to the side of the house where I’ve plugged in their wintertime water bowl.

They also have one to the edge of the field where they go to bark at the coyotes whose commute takes them down our grass waterway every morning. The sky is now a bright white in the West, and the snow is falling faster, with bigger, fluffy flakes. It’s time for me to get to my baking and cleaning, my preparations to receive my guests.

Believe in Beauty; Dwell in Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She cherishes family and community and any excuse for a gathering.

Visitations

In Birdland we’re having a thaw. The lovely snow covering has changed my yard to a soggy bog interrupted by islands of dirty snow. The wind is warm, and the grass shows some green amongst the frostbitten brown, while robins (Yes, Robins!) hop around in my yard. Are we really deep in winter on the cusp of this new year?

Ellis has gone to Texas to see his cousins. The absence of my youngest makes a quiet house, and I’m taking advantage of my solitude to do some organizing. I pulled out everything from the living room closet. A couple of coats of white paint will make it brighter, and it will be easier to keep organized. That’s the theory, anyway. Every time I tell people what I’m doing with my break, they laugh, but I’m enjoying both the task and the metaphor.

It reminds me of a story my grandmother used to tell, about a chalice that was gleaming on the outside, but dirty inside. I used to pay special attention to scrubbing out the insides of the cups when I did dishes as a child, thinking that as long as the cup was clean inside, the outside didn’t matter so much. At any rate, one final coat of paint, and then I’ll put things back in the closet in a more orderly fashion. I’m hoping it will be more difficult to put what I don’t really need back into such a nice, fresh closet, so I’ve got a box ready to fill with donations for the thrift store.

This year I’ve been behind since autumn. Usually we cut a Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend, but I’ve always thought it would be romantic to cut one Christmas Eve. My grandmother used to tell about lighting the tree, with candles of course, for only a few minutes on Christmas Eve, like a birthday cake to be blown out after a brief show. Her father would light the candles, keeping a bucket of water nearby to douse the tree if it went up in flames (as, I think, it sometimes did). Romantic or not, I got my wish; this year we didn’t get up the hill to cut a tree until Christmas Eve, and I woke up early Christmas morning to decorate it. I pulled out the contents of the living room closet, but couldn’t find my decorations.

They must be in the upstairs closet, in the room where Dylan, my middle boy, was still sleeping. In the living room closet I found only the shoeboxes of cards of Christmases Past. Stringing them on lines to border all the doorways is my favorite part of decorating, so I did that first. It took an hour or more, because I had to pause and read some, remembering old friends and wondering how they’re getting along. When I was finished, Dylan was still sleeping, so I decided to forget about the tin of decorations and use the leftover Christmas cards on the tree.

I like it; it’s spare and simple that way—no lights, and only a few strands of beads and ribbons for garland. It will be much easier to take down when the time comes.

I glance out the window to see more robins have joined the party. Seriously. On every side of the house, kitchen window, living room, bedroom…I run up to the attic, yes that side too… fifty or more robins hopping and foraging in the yard. They won’t stand still and be counted. More swoop down from the trees. I watch two dueling, their red breasts puffed up to bump chests like human athletes. I’ve never witnessed such robin aggression, but then I’ve never seen such a congregation of them before. I wonder where they are headed. Surely not back north yet?

The next morning as I finish up this letter, the wind is even warmer and the robins are gone—the yard is quiet and still, the snow shrunk to a few small spots in the shelter of trees and shrubs. I look around and finally see one last robin high in a tree. I wonder if that one will follow its fellows, or take its chances here until winter visits again.

Sing in Beauty; Roam in Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She is interested in the many visitations to her back yard and wonders where the travelers come from, and where they are going. She wishes them well on their journey

The Longest Night

In Birdland we are caught in the firm jaws of winter. The snow has encrusted, and the wind carries dust from the field to add a layer of soot to the once pristine drifts.

The furnace barrels on endlessly despite the fire I try to keep burning in the woodstove. The longest night of the year has just passed, but it’s still a long, hard journey until spring. The Winter Solstice is my favorite holiday. I always think it’s the darkest it can get. The sun has turned the corner of the year, and though it’s a long way off, Spring is on its way back.

I had been thinking about running again, thinking that this school break would be a good time to get back into an exercise routine. Ellis said he would be my trainer. My youngest's cross country experience means he knows all the stretches to avoid injury. The other night Ellis came to offer me a small square of a chocolate bar. As I took it, he said, "Now you have to run tomorrow." I agreed, and when he was up the ne

xt morning already dressed in his purple under armor, I knew he wouldn't let me off the hook. We did a slow jog to the mailboxes, then he showed me how to stretch. He said he was going to do two miles and I told him I'd just run as far as I could, hoping to make it to the grass waterway. I figured if I could make it there, then the next day I might make it to the pineys, and a bit further each day after that. With luck I'd make it around the corner and to the Benson timber within a week or so. Ellis took off, and Isis hung back with me, both of us bouncing along at our slow lope--two old ladies, my dog and I.

I always knew that running was a great way to de-stress, but I didn't realize that the rhythm of my breath and the pumping of my heart and the slow clop-clop-clop of my feet would act as a meditation of sorts. In the beginning my mind was running through troubling events, and before I knew it, I had passed the grass waterway, my original goal. I surprised myself and kept going. As I ran further, I began to pay less attention to my troubles and more attention to the various pulses in my body. I passed the piney woods and the cemetery, and felt no need to stop. I began to get curious about why I could keep running. Ellis was long ago out of sight, and I thought I might make it around the corner to the Benson timber. Sights and sounds and scents began to replace my troubles. I smelled the warm scent of my neighbor's horses, heard a high, warbling birdsong. I passed my uncle’s house and saw Ellis coming toward me on his way back from the one mile mark at the bridge. As he neared I called to him, "Can you see me?"

He slowed his pace a little, and as he approached, I made a long slow u-turn to run alongside him. He gave me an odd look. "Um...yeah," he said. "Why?"

"Well, I thought maybe I dropped dead on the road back there, and this was my ghost running. If you can see me, I'm probably not dead. High five!" At that moment I felt like I could run forever, and my ghost running while my body lay on the road behind made about as much sense as the idea that I could actually run as far as my uncle's house the first day of training.

Ellis gave me a high five, and I told him he didn't need to wait for me; I'd see him back at home. He picked up his pace and soon he was out of sight again. Isis and I followed with our slow clomp-clomp through the ice and snow.

Run in beauty; Absorb Peace; Blessed Be. Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She has decided on a goal to run five miles before her fiftieth birthday. She is interested in cycles and rhythms, celestial and earthly.

Summer in the Midst of Winter

Winter seems to be settled in for a nice, long visit in Birdland. Winter changes my perspective, and 30 degrees seems warm to me, but we haven't seen 30 degrees for awhile. The snow covers the yard with tight little crystals that squeak when I walk out to fill the woodbox.

My pile of firewood is melting away. I love the cozy feel of a wood fire in the winter, and keep a kettle on top of the stove for tea. I usually have a pot of soup or stew cooking, too. My stovetop gets crowded when I have a hot fire.

I bundle up in sweaters and throws and woolen slippers, but I keep warm another way too. The taste of summer is distilled in my pear butter and apple sauce. I pull it out of the freezer to spread on toast, to pour over chicken, and it brings back a little of the sunshine that went into it. Before the freeze I pulled out my tomato vines--some volunteer yellow cherry tomatoes that come up every year in the garden coop whether I invite them or not. They kind of take over the coop, growing like a true vine, not a bush. In the summer I forsake them for the varieties I actually planted--big, beefy red ones, and the Romas.

But I brought the vines to the basement and laid them across my laundry rack. The leaves withered and dried, of course, but the little green tomatoes quietly turned yellowy-orange, even though I forgot all about them. I happened to glance at them while pulling clothes from the drier, and saw them hanging like bright Christmas tree lights—or maybe it’s the Christmas lights that hang like ripe fruit. They, too, have distilled the summer sunshine, and seem to be lit from within. They're a little wrinkled, but tasty. As I pull them from the vine and pop a few in my mouth, I remember the summer sun spilling down as I weeded in the garden coop. I close my eyes for a moment and call up that summer heat to get me through this cold snap.

The winter is hard on old ladies, and Isis, my yellow dog, sleeps later and more soundly these days. She has a more difficult time getting up to go out, but once she’s stretched out the stiffness, she’s happy to walk even in the worst weather, her yellow tail wagging slowly back and forth like a flag. In the mornings, she’s not quite sure she wants to go out until Ursula nudges her with her soft, black nose. Still, Isis doesn’t want to go far on our walks, so I’m glad that Ellis discovered the lazy person’s method of dog exercise—leave it to my fourteen-year-old son to come up with a techie plan for virtual exercise. At night, he lets Ursa out on the porch and stands in the doorway, shining a tiny laser beam through the window onto the snow. Ursula never tires of chasing the red light around the yard, over the snow, around the tree, into the field. In fact, once she’s started, it’s hard to get her back inside, but once she comes in, she sleeps like a baby.

We all find ways to keep warm in the winter, to savor a little bit of summer sunshine until the Earth turns us around to face the sun again.

Savor Beauty; Remember Peace; Blessed Be.

We still have kittens to give away in Birdland. Email Mary if you'd like to adopt one.

Keeping the Home Fires Burning

This morning it's 13 degrees in Birdland, and I can't get the fire started. I've been known to skimp on preparation, but this time I used everything I was taught about fires. I cleared out the ashes so the stove could breathe; I made sure the flue was open and the window slightly cracked to provide ventilation; I piled a generous handful of kindling over crumpled paper; I propped a split log over the kindling. It should have been a one match fire. It started enthusiastically enough, and I took my coffee back to my desk to work, confident that my soup would cook on the stovetop and the house would warm. I worked a little, then went out to the kitchen for a refill to find the stove quiet, no shadows of orange flames dancing behind the sooty glass face of the stove door. I tried again and again with more kindling and more paper, readjusting the log just a bit. Each time the kindling would catch, and I’d leave a merry blaze only to return fifteen minutes later to ashes—my soup barely warm, the room still cold.

This morning I have at least sixteen things to do before 2:00, and I’ve only managed to smear my hands with soot. I need a new plan. I decide to begin again and go out into the snow for fresh kindling. The wind bites my face and the snow squeaks under my feet. I see some twigs sticking out of a snowdrift and pull out a dry branch. I snap it into stove lengths as I walk back to the kitchen door, thinking about the snow. The cold has made it stony and a little cruel, but when it first fell a week ago it was lovely. I was out at the First Friday celebration in Monticello, making my way around the square with my friend. We each had a wine glass and had a little taste of wine, and maybe a bite of cheese from each shop. It was a festive evening as we visited from store to store, seeing friends from the community in a new context. We talked about travel with our sons' teachers, we discussed grandchildren and drank sparkling grape juice in a toy store. We’d step out into the night and be dusted with snow as we walked a few doors down. Bulky snowflakes would sift down on us, and it was just cold enough that they’d land on the sleeve of my fleece and stay whole for a while. I can’t get tired of examining a snow crystal: tiny, perfect three-dimensional worlds. I could get lost in them if they would stay long enough, but suddenly they melt and it’s time to go into the next shop.

Now I go back inside and begin again with my fire. I pull the charred logs out of the stove and lay them on the brick hearth. They are smoking slightly, so I hurry to crumple paper and pile kindling over it. I lay the logs over the kindling and reach for a match, but before I can strike it I see that the coals of my almost-fire have ignited the paper. I watch through the open stove door until the kindling catches. I shut the doors and go to wash the soot from my hands. I grab my coffee and sit in front of the stove. By now the kindling is crackling and I peek in to see that the logs have begun to burn. The heat warms my face and I sip my coffee and stir my soup. Sometimes a fire just likes to be watched.

Burn in Beauty; Watch in Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She is interested in community and the balance of work and life. She still has a few kittens who need homes.