While it's been more than a year that The Frontier has begun to feel like home, I still have occassional periods where I miss Virginia - the DC area in particular - deeply. Fall is one of those times.
I miss the Association of University Women's annual used booksale at the McLean community center. I miss the National Book Fair. I miss the storybook fall weather and landscapes - The Frontier is much too dry to produce much in the way of spectacular fall colors. I miss the Taste of Bethesda festival - one of my first introductions to what became a long list of "my favorite things" when I first attended 12 years ago. I miss the mass (and usually misguided) hysteria-disguised-as-loyalty regarding the Redskins. Here people root for Denver or San Diego or, sometimes, Seattle - trying to adopt a home team loyalty for teams that play hundreds of miles away.
Most of all, I miss loving fall without having to dread the onset of winter. Winters in the Mid-Atlantic are often a breath of gratitude for relief from the onslaught of soggy, sordid, steamy August weather. Conversely, winters in The Frontier are exactly the weather people attempt to avoid (at least those who give little regard for The Frontier's "Greatest Snow on Earth.") The coming of winter looms over every piece of fall, casting long shadows as the days fade from brilliant sunshine to dull, slate gray skies.
The Frontier has slowly become home - at least for now - and I'm okay with that. But once in awhile - during the golden days of September and October - I miss the East Coast falls that I once anticipated with great excitement.
Showing posts with label Seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seasons. Show all posts
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Friday, February 20, 2009
It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like ...
SPRINGTIME.
Okay, I realize it could, in theory, snow here until well into May. But I do believe our weeks of massive, three-day-long snowstorms are winding down. Something in the way the sun is tilted, and the way it lingers in the southern sky a bit longer these days. (Sidenote: three cheers to the congressman who decided to move Daylight Savings up to March - is it totally ridiculous? Absolutely. Do I love him for it? Anyone who gives me light is beloved in my camp.)
This morning, Woodstock woke up to the twitter of birds. As a matter of fact, she woke up yelling, "Birdies! Tweet tweet. Tweet tweet." Then wanted to go upstairs rightthisverysecond to investigate as to whether or not the birds could be seen. It's been months since the birds visited us before noon. We lie in the shadows of The Frontier's largest mountain range, and the sun doesn't reach us for awhile in the deepest freeze of winter.
Today, I'm working from home for a few hours - we had to leave the office as the server needed rebooting. No one has to tell me twice to leave early on a brilliantly sunny Friday afternoon. No one actually has to tell me to keep working either - Woodstock is napping and it's still too cold to actually enjoy the aforementioned sunshine.
Last February at this time, I was knitted deep in the throes of a bitterly cold, emotionally dark winter. And I was dreaming of lucious shrimp paneer - one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. Well, that and paneer masala at Bombay House. (If Jane is reading this, this would be the first recipe I want from your Indian excursion - in addition to a good dal). This February has flown by ... a rash of doctor's visits to confirm I wasn't dying (ha - I just might if my breakfast doesn't stay down), visits from my mom and sister, a speaking gig at a really cool event last night, in-law visits this weekend (*crickets*), and then ... end of the month.
And March means, at least according to the calendar/sun schedule - spring.
It's so exciting, Woodstock and I might just celebrate with steamed asparagus tonight. After all, it's my favorite spring veggie.
Okay, I realize it could, in theory, snow here until well into May. But I do believe our weeks of massive, three-day-long snowstorms are winding down. Something in the way the sun is tilted, and the way it lingers in the southern sky a bit longer these days. (Sidenote: three cheers to the congressman who decided to move Daylight Savings up to March - is it totally ridiculous? Absolutely. Do I love him for it? Anyone who gives me light is beloved in my camp.)
This morning, Woodstock woke up to the twitter of birds. As a matter of fact, she woke up yelling, "Birdies! Tweet tweet. Tweet tweet." Then wanted to go upstairs rightthisverysecond to investigate as to whether or not the birds could be seen. It's been months since the birds visited us before noon. We lie in the shadows of The Frontier's largest mountain range, and the sun doesn't reach us for awhile in the deepest freeze of winter.
Today, I'm working from home for a few hours - we had to leave the office as the server needed rebooting. No one has to tell me twice to leave early on a brilliantly sunny Friday afternoon. No one actually has to tell me to keep working either - Woodstock is napping and it's still too cold to actually enjoy the aforementioned sunshine.
Last February at this time, I was knitted deep in the throes of a bitterly cold, emotionally dark winter. And I was dreaming of lucious shrimp paneer - one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. Well, that and paneer masala at Bombay House. (If Jane is reading this, this would be the first recipe I want from your Indian excursion - in addition to a good dal). This February has flown by ... a rash of doctor's visits to confirm I wasn't dying (ha - I just might if my breakfast doesn't stay down), visits from my mom and sister, a speaking gig at a really cool event last night, in-law visits this weekend (*crickets*), and then ... end of the month.
And March means, at least according to the calendar/sun schedule - spring.
It's so exciting, Woodstock and I might just celebrate with steamed asparagus tonight. After all, it's my favorite spring veggie.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Maybe I'm Not Going to Hibernate This Year ... Yet
Two years ago, the crisis of the moment was trying to figure out what to feed a family of six in our congregation that wouldn't kill them (or us). It was a small, ridiculous thing, but the whole month was one of turmoil and uncertainty that lead to a life-changing (good and bad) February.
One year ago, the crisis of the moment was very, very real. Himself was out of a job, I was neck-deep in a personal crisis and my worries the year before seemed rather elementary.
This January, the 10-day forecast on Monday showed 45-degree temperatures and sunshine EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sure we're having inversion and the air outside is bad enough to kill us - but it does nothing to diminish my desire to click my heels and sing each morning when I leave the house and discover SUNSHINE. We've not had three snow storms in a week all winter. The last storm melted off our driveway before we got around to shoveling it. My boss isn't insane. Himself likes his job. The future appears to be bright. Woodstock is as sweet-tempered as ever.
While I still hate winter and snow and being cold, for the first time in recent memory, I am tolerating January rather well. I'm also scared to admit this, because a) winter is far from over - Februrary is the snowiest month in The Frontier and b) I'm afraid that some big trial or challenge will be sent my way just to test my newly minted postive-January outlook.
If you excuse Himself's nearly 3-week mystery illness and my wicked insomnia and our combined total lack of appetite for anything respectable (food-wise), January is shaping up to be a fairly decent month.
Like I said, it's the little things that count mid-winter.
One year ago, the crisis of the moment was very, very real. Himself was out of a job, I was neck-deep in a personal crisis and my worries the year before seemed rather elementary.
This January, the 10-day forecast on Monday showed 45-degree temperatures and sunshine EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sure we're having inversion and the air outside is bad enough to kill us - but it does nothing to diminish my desire to click my heels and sing each morning when I leave the house and discover SUNSHINE. We've not had three snow storms in a week all winter. The last storm melted off our driveway before we got around to shoveling it. My boss isn't insane. Himself likes his job. The future appears to be bright. Woodstock is as sweet-tempered as ever.
While I still hate winter and snow and being cold, for the first time in recent memory, I am tolerating January rather well. I'm also scared to admit this, because a) winter is far from over - Februrary is the snowiest month in The Frontier and b) I'm afraid that some big trial or challenge will be sent my way just to test my newly minted postive-January outlook.
If you excuse Himself's nearly 3-week mystery illness and my wicked insomnia and our combined total lack of appetite for anything respectable (food-wise), January is shaping up to be a fairly decent month.
Like I said, it's the little things that count mid-winter.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Forecast: Winter
One ergonomically correct snow shovel: $19.99
One extra-large container chemical-free, safe-for-pets-irrigation-ditches-and-small-children ice melter: $12.99
Two large containers of windshield wiper fluid - one for each car - to clean off all the sludge left over from the winter snow storms: $5.98
Realizing winter is here to stay: PAINFUL.
One extra-large container chemical-free, safe-for-pets-irrigation-ditches-and-small-children ice melter: $12.99
Two large containers of windshield wiper fluid - one for each car - to clean off all the sludge left over from the winter snow storms: $5.98
Realizing winter is here to stay: PAINFUL.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thinking Out Loud, Part V
A continuation of this ...
It doesn't really matter what the summer was like. There were two blissful weeks where I felt absolutely perfectly happy, as long as I didn't think about the future. I worked part-time at The Factory. Turned off caring about anything related to it and enjoyed the warm summer afternoons I got to spend with Woodstock - swimming in the backyard kiddie pool, mostly - in an attempt to beg her to tolerate water/bathing.
There was a 7-day period where I didn't work at all "between jobs" at The Factory and The Office. Grover had arrived, along with a friend of Himself's from Virginia, and I puttered and took the kids swimming and went to the zoo and rejoiced in life as a stay-at-home mom.
Himself remarked about the light in my eyes. The panic attacks that were coming almost daily decreased. I had only one.
The rest of the summer zoomed past too fast - the best laid plans went awry and summer ended with me feeling like I had gained so much early on and lost it in a flurry of moving, Himself's out-of-town trips and work schedule, my new (respectable and stable, if dull) job and Woodstock's dramatic foray into her first real illnesses.
Now it is fall. On the brink of winter's onslaught. This week marks my 1-year anniversary returning to work following Woodstock's birth. She is 1 year, 7 weeks old. I can feel the terror start to take over again. The anxious static in the background beginning to wake up after a lazy summer nap. I see myself slipping here and there - clinging to Woodstock, smelling her babyfine hair, holding her close to stave off the inevitable nightmares.
I've gone through weeks of insomnia, nightmares, nights where I can do nothing but drag my feet down the stairs and into bed - all the things that marked the post partum downward spiral.
This time, I'm fighting back with everything I can muster. I am walking, doing yoga, eating well, forcing time with friends, saying no when I know I can't handle something - even if it seems petty or awkward or, dare I say it, disobedient. On the advice of my former headshrinker, I am writing it out ... where it will be read. Not because it doesn't tear me up to have someone know what is going on inside my head, but because, in her words, "there has to be an accountability factor." I can't talk about it yet, out loud, so writing to an invisible audience is the remedy.
This time, there is a small support network of real-life people I see beyond my office or computer screen. "You need to make friends," everyone told me in my darkest moments. "You need to get out." I couldn't. I was paralyzed, crippled by the absolute inability to string together one coherent sentence without crumbling to fine dust in a spectacular display of snotty, tear-stained weakness. I felt as if I was hiding some terrible secret ... in reality, I was.
The change in employment, the passing of Woodstock's infancy (something I mourn daily - there are whole periods of time, weeks of her life, where I remember nothing but what I captured in no fewer than 300 photos of just Woodstock - as if I could cut out the darkness and just preserve the light), the move, the brief sunny respite in this desert at the top of the mountains all helped. I had something positive to talk about, something interesting to share. I began to read again - newspapers, books, anything I could get my hands on.
I got to know my next-door neighbor, we met a couple at a class we are taking, I forced myself to face the disasterous fallout from the weeks and months of not opening the mail or answering the phone. There is a plan in place. I am working to gain control of what I can and not caring about what I can't.
I am healing. Slowly, one day at a time, I am coming back to life.
It doesn't really matter what the summer was like. There were two blissful weeks where I felt absolutely perfectly happy, as long as I didn't think about the future. I worked part-time at The Factory. Turned off caring about anything related to it and enjoyed the warm summer afternoons I got to spend with Woodstock - swimming in the backyard kiddie pool, mostly - in an attempt to beg her to tolerate water/bathing.
There was a 7-day period where I didn't work at all "between jobs" at The Factory and The Office. Grover had arrived, along with a friend of Himself's from Virginia, and I puttered and took the kids swimming and went to the zoo and rejoiced in life as a stay-at-home mom.
Himself remarked about the light in my eyes. The panic attacks that were coming almost daily decreased. I had only one.
The rest of the summer zoomed past too fast - the best laid plans went awry and summer ended with me feeling like I had gained so much early on and lost it in a flurry of moving, Himself's out-of-town trips and work schedule, my new (respectable and stable, if dull) job and Woodstock's dramatic foray into her first real illnesses.
Now it is fall. On the brink of winter's onslaught. This week marks my 1-year anniversary returning to work following Woodstock's birth. She is 1 year, 7 weeks old. I can feel the terror start to take over again. The anxious static in the background beginning to wake up after a lazy summer nap. I see myself slipping here and there - clinging to Woodstock, smelling her babyfine hair, holding her close to stave off the inevitable nightmares.
I've gone through weeks of insomnia, nightmares, nights where I can do nothing but drag my feet down the stairs and into bed - all the things that marked the post partum downward spiral.
This time, I'm fighting back with everything I can muster. I am walking, doing yoga, eating well, forcing time with friends, saying no when I know I can't handle something - even if it seems petty or awkward or, dare I say it, disobedient. On the advice of my former headshrinker, I am writing it out ... where it will be read. Not because it doesn't tear me up to have someone know what is going on inside my head, but because, in her words, "there has to be an accountability factor." I can't talk about it yet, out loud, so writing to an invisible audience is the remedy.
This time, there is a small support network of real-life people I see beyond my office or computer screen. "You need to make friends," everyone told me in my darkest moments. "You need to get out." I couldn't. I was paralyzed, crippled by the absolute inability to string together one coherent sentence without crumbling to fine dust in a spectacular display of snotty, tear-stained weakness. I felt as if I was hiding some terrible secret ... in reality, I was.
The change in employment, the passing of Woodstock's infancy (something I mourn daily - there are whole periods of time, weeks of her life, where I remember nothing but what I captured in no fewer than 300 photos of just Woodstock - as if I could cut out the darkness and just preserve the light), the move, the brief sunny respite in this desert at the top of the mountains all helped. I had something positive to talk about, something interesting to share. I began to read again - newspapers, books, anything I could get my hands on.
I got to know my next-door neighbor, we met a couple at a class we are taking, I forced myself to face the disasterous fallout from the weeks and months of not opening the mail or answering the phone. There is a plan in place. I am working to gain control of what I can and not caring about what I can't.
I am healing. Slowly, one day at a time, I am coming back to life.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wandering In the Dark
In high school, when I briefly flirted with the idea of attending a small liberal arts school in Wisconsin, my father practically begged me to reconsider. Not because it was a known party school, not because the tuition was enough to feed a small third-world country for a day, not because the words "small and liberal arts" were used in the same sentence, not because I would be moving thousands of miles away to a land inhabited by roughly as many cows and bars as people. No, all of those would have been a sure fire way to get me to flee gaily to the cheesehead capitol and stay there whether I liked it or not, just to prove a point. Rather, he practically begged me to reconsider my musings because it SNOWED there. (To be fair, I'm sure the other reasons crossed his mind several dozen times, but he knew me well enough to deter me with my weakness rather than with his worst nightmares come true).
It's a well known fact that I hate winter. Unfortunately, Himself hates to be hot, so we're trapped in the middle horizontal third of the country where the summers are hot (hoorah) and the winters are frigid (you can see Himself hoisting his skis and singing praises at each new patch of snow that shows up on the mountains).
However, it isn't the snow or the cold or the scraping of one's windows that I hate as much as the lack of light. It is nearly physically impossible for me to function without daylight. Artificial light doesn't cut it. I crave real, honest-to-goodness sunshine.
For this reason, I loathe the week before Daylight Savings ends and winter officially begins (regardless of what nature says, winter begins when it is dark when you get up and dark when you get home). I left my house this morning at 6:34 a.m. to wander around in the pitch blackness that only winter can bring as Day 2 of Operation Fitness commenced. Unlike Virginia, where everyone is halfway into their 2-hour commute at 6:30 a.m., no one is actually up and out at that hour in The Frontier, this close to the city.
I wandered around in the dark for 45 minutes. I passed three people and maybe four times that many cars. It felt as if I was exercising at 3 a.m. rather than the more-than-sensible 6:30 a.m.
The entire time (while praying I wasn't going to be hit by a car or incapacitated by the uneven terrain caused by sidewalks that appear and disappear at random in my enighborhood) I contemplated how I could hibernate through winter or move to the southern hemisphere where it is now spring. No longer is my dream of being a snowbird and owning two houses good enough - now I want those houses to be in two different hemispheres so I don't have to deal with dark mornings and cold days any more.
Seriously, in the days of telecommuting, wireless Internet and automatic deposit, would it be so wrong for me to consider apartment hunting in, say, a small beachside town in South America?
It's a well known fact that I hate winter. Unfortunately, Himself hates to be hot, so we're trapped in the middle horizontal third of the country where the summers are hot (hoorah) and the winters are frigid (you can see Himself hoisting his skis and singing praises at each new patch of snow that shows up on the mountains).
However, it isn't the snow or the cold or the scraping of one's windows that I hate as much as the lack of light. It is nearly physically impossible for me to function without daylight. Artificial light doesn't cut it. I crave real, honest-to-goodness sunshine.
For this reason, I loathe the week before Daylight Savings ends and winter officially begins (regardless of what nature says, winter begins when it is dark when you get up and dark when you get home). I left my house this morning at 6:34 a.m. to wander around in the pitch blackness that only winter can bring as Day 2 of Operation Fitness commenced. Unlike Virginia, where everyone is halfway into their 2-hour commute at 6:30 a.m., no one is actually up and out at that hour in The Frontier, this close to the city.
I wandered around in the dark for 45 minutes. I passed three people and maybe four times that many cars. It felt as if I was exercising at 3 a.m. rather than the more-than-sensible 6:30 a.m.
The entire time (while praying I wasn't going to be hit by a car or incapacitated by the uneven terrain caused by sidewalks that appear and disappear at random in my enighborhood) I contemplated how I could hibernate through winter or move to the southern hemisphere where it is now spring. No longer is my dream of being a snowbird and owning two houses good enough - now I want those houses to be in two different hemispheres so I don't have to deal with dark mornings and cold days any more.
Seriously, in the days of telecommuting, wireless Internet and automatic deposit, would it be so wrong for me to consider apartment hunting in, say, a small beachside town in South America?
Friday, September 05, 2008
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Left my old job ("old" as in 13 months old - good grief can I not stay somewhere beyond the point where I get three weeks of vacation?!)
Got a new job ("new" as in went to work for one of The Factory's clients).
Moved (to the house next door to the Hobbit Hole - to keep up with the "hohum" theme of summer).
Road trip to some of the state's national parks - making me understand why people with more than one child buy large vehicles - we spent several hours driving down Highway 89 with two adult males over 6' in the front and me, Grover and Woodstock squished in the back.
One aborted camping trip due to Woodstock's sudden onset of double pneumonia.
Several trips to the zoo.
That's it.
The summer gleamed with so much promise the April weekend I took Woodstock for a walk, wore flip flops for the first time and gave long, gushing prayers of gratitude for more sunshine and less inversion.
And somehow, it sailed right by - lost amidst the job drama, the move, Grover's visit, unpacking and Woodstock's birthday party. Essentially, I've spent the entire summer tied in knots.
*sigh*
Got a new job ("new" as in went to work for one of The Factory's clients).
Moved (to the house next door to the Hobbit Hole - to keep up with the "hohum" theme of summer).
Road trip to some of the state's national parks - making me understand why people with more than one child buy large vehicles - we spent several hours driving down Highway 89 with two adult males over 6' in the front and me, Grover and Woodstock squished in the back.
One aborted camping trip due to Woodstock's sudden onset of double pneumonia.
Several trips to the zoo.
That's it.
The summer gleamed with so much promise the April weekend I took Woodstock for a walk, wore flip flops for the first time and gave long, gushing prayers of gratitude for more sunshine and less inversion.
And somehow, it sailed right by - lost amidst the job drama, the move, Grover's visit, unpacking and Woodstock's birthday party. Essentially, I've spent the entire summer tied in knots.
*sigh*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)