18 below zero this morning.
The cold comes at my face like a knife when I take out the wood stove ashes. The early morning is perfectly still, full of sunlight. This is not the songbird season.
I’ve now lived through a few dozen Vermont Januaries, beginning as a young woman when I spent so many January nights walking around beneath the winter sky, amazed at all those stars in the deep country dark. Januaries of nursing babies, of a long driving commute, of sledding and baking bread, and enduring the beginnings of cabin fever’s madness.
Always, there’s the cold that reminds us immediately of our own fragile mortality and an inevitable thaw. By the end of the month, daylight returns in a rush. In these chopped-up days of uncertainty, I remind myself of these constants.
‘We forget about the spaciousness
above the clouds
but it’s up there. The sun’s up there too.‘
~Naomi Shihab Nye
Stony Soil Vermont 
I always enjoy your short reflections. Thank you for those.I grew up in Plattsburg, NY, so relate to your observations about that part of the country. I am also reading, and enjoying, Unstitched right now. As a fellow writer and former book editor it is a pleasure reading your words!
Thank you for writing in! I’m so happy to hear you’re enjoying Unstitched. As a writer yourself, you must know how curious I am to hear from readers.
Very best!
Indeed! I left publishing and writing books about 15 years ago, but before that I loved hearing from readers as well, and still do when it happens occasionally. Blogging is my writing outlet still, but no more books!
We didn’t get quite that cold here in the South, but once you hit zero it really doesn’t matter!
Lovely writing. I’m now following. Thanks for visiting Fake Flamenco!
A pleasure to meet you!
Thanks, likewise. 🙂 You may like my Where the Wild Mushrooms Grow post.