Only one month into the year and January has taken some of the best of us. Those who made us laugh (and we sure could use more of that these days), those who expanded our horizons with music and mindset, those that have been around making their mark on our lives for many years. Bob Weir (Grateful Dead). comedy actress Catherine O’Hara, Grady Demond Wilson (“Sanford and Son”), just to name a few. Adding to that, I just received news that yet another old friend has passed on. Lately I am feeling so mortal, the acute awareness of being very much in The Zone. Everything suddenly feels so uncertain, so difficult.

Obviously, the winter blues have set in. Thinking I pretty much had it together earlier, clearly the grip is slipping now – sitting back, mentally frozen and mostly speechless about the state of the world at the moment, as a lot of us are. There has been little motivation to attend to all but the most necessary chores and obligations, or to dabble in any creative endeavors, instead drifting off to mindless movies and series that are not too emotionally challenging. Being armed with a package of Dubai style chocolates in order to prompt an incentive to write some thoughts down will hopefully kickstart this stagnancy.

When Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead passed away at the end of January I didn’t expect to be pulled into such a funk about it, yet here I am, trying to analyze why. The internet and social media feeds have been bombarded with stories, videos, photos, soundtracks, discussions and memories about him, dating back to my own teenage years to the present, causing an immersion into Bobby-Land over the last week or so. Closer to home, a friend of mine who knew him shared a few interesting anecdotes and amusing discussions they had – I guess that is my one degree of separation. But mostly the whole impact (for me) was that it was just one more reflection parallel and personal to my (and clearly to others) youth – touching on scenes, situations and experiences both musically and culturally that affected philosophy and choices which tilted the trajectory through early adulthood into this old(er) age. And now that piece is gone. It’s been a bit of a slap-in-the-face reality, time-stamps and expiration dates on a life.

This is a hard winter so far. The northeast (from where I sit) has been slammed with plenty of snow. An additional two feet of it was rapidly dumped on us last weekend. About every two hours I would go out to shovel what accumulated on the steps and walkway off The Urban Porch in order to give the dog a place to relieve himself. I did that six times – each time you would never know it had been shoveled at all. People who were out briefly walking their dogs would take them into the street after the plows made a pass since it was too deep to walk through. Our own truck and plow got stuck at the end of the driveway. Eventually there was no place left to put all that snow. Flashbacks of my highway department snow removal days were giving me mild PTSD vibes.

The sidewalks currently look like bobsled runs. It was fun to see people flying down the middle of the empty street on cross-country skiis. Neighbors were outside trying to keep up with the accumulation, commenting to each other things like “Can you believe this?” “I can’t deal with this!” “Climate change!” Yet on reflection, we were getting significant snowfall and blizzards back when we were kids. I have fond recollections of the pine trees with bows so laden with heavy snow and drifts that they touched the ground, creating igloo-like magical forts beneath them. The perspective of youth vs. adult responsibilities.

Once upon a time there would be kids and teenagers with shovels slung over their shoulders, walking the streets on the heels of a storm, knocking on doors, eager to make some money by shoveling or digging someone out. Does that happen anywhere now? Over the last number of years (decades?) I haven’t seen even one. The same goes for mowing lawns in the summer. Absence of work ethic, or what’s going on? It seems the people who are out there doing the hard jobs that nobody wants to do are the very same hard-working people that our current government is (cruelly, brutally) trying to eliminate. Okay, I’m not going to go further down that road here, but it’s adding to the pall of depression and despair hanging over this country right now.

At least the accumulation has been beautiful, a lightweight, crystal-like texture. I made sure to have a bowl of maple syrup snow to celebrate the initial wonder of the freshly fallen.

It’s the frigid temperatures that have been killer hard. Moving south will never be in my future, but there is an acknowledgement of the appeal for many. The bitter cold has been brutal. Touching almost anything in the house creates a static shock. I swear my hair has never been straighter than it is right now, and if you know my hair, that’s saying a lot. Songbirds flocked to shelter in my neighbor’s henhouse during the storm. Another friend with hens mentioned that the eggs she came out to collect a bit too late the other morning had frozen.

Walking the dog in the morning at sub-zero degrees can only last for a few brief minutes before his little paws freeze, in addition to the rock salt burning. He will not tolerate booties. He barely tolerates his sweater. When I put any outerwear on him, you would think he was being tortured, emitting sharp, yelping, guinea-pig noises in protest that sound like “WHEET! WHEEET!” It’s like trying to wrestle a toddler into a snowsuit. Thus his current nickname (one of many) is “Wheet.”

As always, when everything starts to feel like a slow slide into the abyss, it helps to look to the outside. From an upstairs window, a pair of squirrels are working in tandem on the feeder below, one perched on top swaying it back and forth while the other cleans up the spillage.

Antennas of icicles drape from the trees

while the bathroom window continues to generate visions. I call this one “Trajectory of a Sneeze.”

Loud croaks from above direct focus to a pair of massive Ravens in the trees behind the house.

An attempt to record their rasping barks was thwarted as they took off towards the sky.

While eating quiche and soup with a friend, I’ve enjoyed the spectacle of enormous, copper-colored turkeys grazing beneath the birdfeeders.

At certain angles, the sunlight reflecting off their feathers reveals a unexpected display of rainbow hues.

Down the street, Fence Dino has weathered the storm.

Cobalt blue orbs left over from a neighbor’s holiday decor glow beneath pointed white caps.

Little Rudi gazes at the stillness beyond the glass, hoping for a glimpse of some canine activity he can bark at.

The full Snow Moon rises, a glowing eye-beacon observing the landscape beyond a tangle of branches.

Today is also Imbolc, a traditional Gaelic festival that celebrates the coming of spring – which feels so very far away at the moment. It is the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox which falls on or about February 1st. While Imbolc has not been anything I have made a point of observing, I came across a recipe for Rosemary Oat Bannock that looked so appealing that I might go out to tomorrow to gather a few ingredients and attempt to make it, which might generate some inertia and could also suffice for the celebration of something, a looking (reaching, grasping) towards the light.

Earworm of the day from Workingman’s Dead – somehow appropriate:

One way or another
One way or another
One way or another
This darkness got to give

~*~

* “New Speedway Boogie” – by Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia – Workingman’s Dead 1970