Ring around the Moon

What does it mean when there's a big, wide, misty ring around the moon? Snow? Harbinger of death? Good luck? Fertility? Hmm.

D and I went for a walk last night with Neko. I love moonlit walks, especially when the air is frosty and there's snow on the ground. Everything seems illuminated from within.

Things look different in the moonlight; more ethereal, less serious. I like how the trees are sharply outlined, how D's face is half-hidden, how Neko's eyes glint when she turns to stare at us from down the road.

I can't wait to walk in the moonlight through the fields at Someday. Someday...

Living with Boys

D and I have been shacked up with his brother since September, pending renovations on Someday Farm. We finally found a contractor, only to have him call us on the starting date to tell us his 17 year old son jumped out of the back of a moving truck and was in a coma. Geezalou. The poor man - the poor kid. So...Someday is still unoccupied and cold and lonely. But life could be a lot worse, as evidenced by our contractor.

So I represent a minority of estrogen here in the bungalow in Blair's Grove. (Neko doesn't count) I grew up in a household of women; my Dad left when I was in grade 9, and so my mom and sister and I developed our own feminine style of living, free of all male interference. Needless to say, things got real freaky once a month.

I've lived with lots of boys before; in fact, they were my preferred choice of roommate throughout university. I lived with a couple of girls 2nd year - Trish and Buffy - and they were fun, but really, boys are best. They don't hold grudges, or throw tantrums, or try to borrow your stuff. They don't sweat the small stuff. Apart from raunchy hockey equipment, occasional flatulence and a penchant for cleaning out all food-related items from the cupboards, they make excellent living companions.

Having gained two brothers through my marriage to D has been cool. Albeit, they're YOUNGER brothers, but I like it for a change from two sisters. They tease me incessantly, which I enjoy because I can dish it back. C has taken to buying me small treats when he goes to town, taking a hint from the times I'd bring him caramel corn or fudge from the city on my weekly work journeys. Last week it was a mini chocolate cream pie. The week before I coaxed him to bring me a fussy latte from the town's ONE and only decent coffee shop. This week, he brought me a Christmas tree. Yes! Finally! He didn't even complain when it dropped about a trillion needles all over the carpet.

I'm not sure what Christmas will be like this year, celebrating in close quarters with C and D. I'm just thankful to have someone to share the season with up here.

Joy in the cornfield

I saw eight deer in the West field the other night at D's parents' farm. D walked me to my car on his way to do chores.

"Watch out for ---," he called as he walked towards the milk house, but I couldn't hear him over the wind.

"Watch out for what?" I yelled back.

He put his fingers above his head like antlers and started prancing around. Quite a sight, a six-foot tall guy in coveralls pretending to be a deer. I felt a surge of affection go through me, waved and drove off.

And sure enough, as the Kia crawled down the bumpy lane through the darkness, I spied a flash of white off to my right - the flick of a tail as a doe lept through the cornfield. And then there were 3 more, then another 4, flickering across my headlights, bounding high and wide across the road.

I was fascinated; they were a stone's throw away from me, so I slowed the car to a halt. They watched me; I watched them. Then, as though someone had pressed a button, they turned in unison and danced their way through the field to the forest. Deer move with an otherworldly grace, leaping and flying over cornstalks, dodging each other in a pattern that seems planned. My heart lept with the deer, just like Clarice Starling's did in Hannibal.

White Gold

Well, I got my wish - 3cm of the white stuff. Winter at last!

The first snow has always been an event that makes me jump up and down like a kid, much to the annoyance of various co-workers and friends. Why is it that so many people who hate winter live in Canada? I suppose that we all need to find something to complain about, the weather often being the most convenient subject. Still - how can anyone hate snow? So it's cold. So it's damp. So you slip and fall on your ass occasionally. Why not embrace the beauty and uniqueness of every snowfall? It's not like hating it is going to make it go away.

I'm trying that theory with wind. I have a strong dislike of wind; its rough caress is like getting a bear hug from someone you don't like, and it does horrifying things to my hair. But I figure if I embrace it back rather than stiffen up when it comes to get me, I might actually learn to like it.

Neko and I went for a walk on the beach in the midst of the sleetish stuff that was falling from the sky yesterday. It was like a thick wet curtain slapping us in the face repeatedly. My pants and shoes got hopelessly soaked, but I didn't care. Neko just shook and slobbered. That dog is content no matter what it's doing outside. So I took my cue from her, squared my shoulders into the wind, snuffed great deep breaths of that slightly fishy Lake Huron air and enjoyed the way the slate-grey sky and water kissed each other at the horizon.

Long live white gold.

Someday's gonna be a busy day

I was born in a small town, spent most of my life in a small city, recently moved to a rural community astride Lake Huron. Married for 10 years to a man I'd known since I was 16 who subsequently cheated on me with a mutual friend, divorced a month before my 35th birthday, married now to my true love, D. As I've whispered to him many times across the pillow, I didn't realize life could be this good.

D was born and raised up here on a dairy farm. My tiny family consists of my two sisters, father, grandmother and an estranged uncle, plus my aunt and three cousins in Nova Scotia and a swath of mostly unkonwn relations scattered throughout Russia. D's family is so big they have to rent the community centre - TWICE - to celebrate Christmas together. It's strange going to town and always meeting someone who knows me, that someone more than likely related to D in some way. There is no anonymity here; but I'm happy to trade that for the frank friendliness in people's faces.

We bought a 200 acre property, complete with barns, apple orchards, river, forest and big ramshackle house. Or, I should say, D's Dad bought everything and we'll sever off our 4 acres as soon as the township lets us. We're going to call it Someday Farm - since someday seems to be our key word. e.g. "Someday I'm gonna own land," "Someday I'm going to buy myself diamond earrings," "Someday, when we have a slew of kids running around here..." etc. My famous quote: "Someday's gonna be a busy day!"

Welcome to bloggerland

I feel kind of shy, posting my innermost thoughts out here in cyberspace. But I also feel strangely compelled to do it, like some hidden voyeuristic tendency is suddenly screaming to be satisfied. Hmm. I wonder how secure these thingys are, and whether the fact that I've marked it private is truly like a lock and key? I guess there's only one way to find out.

I'm so used to scribbling everything out on paper. I like the smell of ink, the crackle of paper, the faint blue lines of my cahier; but I lose so much when I write in my notebooks. So many images, ideas get scrambled up and disappear due to my state of utter disorganization, due to the sheer volume of stuff I scribble. So this way I know where everything is, and apparently I can categorize the damned things too. Now that, faithful reader, is cool.

I'm guessing we'll have snow here in a few days, which doesn't make me unhappy. It's time. The trees are barely decent, swaying around trying to cover themselves. The grass is crisp with light frost in the mornings. I can see my breath at night when I take Neko to her house. (incidentally, I love how D has trained her to run to her doghouse when he says, in a deep, stentorian tone, "Neko - HOUSE!")

This will be the second winter I've spent here, and the first I've spent in the Kink as an actual resident. Of course, I'll be spending it at Carm's place in Blair's Grove, since our own dear house won't be ready to move in to for another, oh, two bloody months. I never thought I'd be a victim of renovation hell, but here I am, getting poked by the pitchforks of contractor whims and burned by husbandly desires for lighting and insulation.

The water changes colour here every day. I am blessed to be so close to it, after all these years of longing to live near its purr and roar. Last winter it was as though I was on a whole other planet - I'd never seen the beach and lake frozen into craters and patterns before. Before I met D, I only knew the world up here as a place that was perpetually summer: bonfires, sand between my toes, the hushed splash of waves, green grasses and greener meadows, humid nights, melted popsicle sunsets. A place that only knew summer. Never a place of frost or sleet or closed highways and snowbanks the height of my shoulders, of clouded 7am breath in the barns, or deer standing motionless in the field by the 4th concession, honey coloured against the stark whiteness.

I can't wait to wake up on Christmas morning in D's arms on Someday farm.