I had to go online and search “hats for huge heads” as no hats in any store can be squeezed on my dome without giving me an instant garroting headache. Luckily for me a couple of nice ladies in Poland whom I found on Etsy make them and I scored! They arrived just in time for the beautiful snow (finally!) this morning.
It has been very muddy and way too warm for December. I should be cross country skiing by now but instead my neck and shoulders are still wincing from an afternoon of assisting ManFriendJeff in shoveling all the wet, heavy horseshit out of the unseasonably thawed paddock. A whole half winter’s worth of poo-mud. I was glad to get it out of there and into the compost for gardening in spring. It’s a painful job though.
The lovely thing that has come with the high temperatures is the fog, it’s been constant and makes our house seem like a private little terrarium. It makes you feel like working on fun projects and wearing sweaters and drinking hot beverages. Lights blur and twinkle. My feet squish into the ground. I see the plants of last fall laid bare in their decomposition exactly where they had been smashed down by the snow right where they had fallen. The collapsed mouse tunnels in the grass look like they were designed on an Etch A Sketch. Stray milkweed flax has made it into the house and my vacuum. The dogs come in from outside asking persistently to be towel dried. It makes them all frisky and silly so I oblige. When I call the horses in from the field in the evening for their supper they appear through the mist like prehistoric monsters. It gives me a thrilling shiver of fear to anticipate their hulking shapes coming out of the dark. I live for it.
There is a single, one-legged cricket living in my bathroom. How it has survived this long I have no idea. It seems like this last summer was the longest summer I can remember in my 53 years and it has concentrated it’s final atoms into this one last licorice-colored insect, as if summer were a parasite biding it’s time and strength through the cold months by hiding in the litter box closet. Summer is brazen and has no shame. Behind the litter box will do just fine, thank you very much!
The brazen can-do spirit of summer hiding in the one-legged cricket will be my cloaking avatar energy going into 2024. It’s jolly and unapologetic and kind. I wish the same kind tenacity for you. All my love, Neko
With you in the big head club. I was once very excited to buy a rain jacket that included a packable rain hat. I couldn’t squeeze that thing over to very top of my head, never mind pull it down for any sort of rain protection. It did give my friend and me a good laugh, and she got to keep the hat for her (regulation-sized) head. We’ve also had a good bit of fog out here in central Maryland. I live by a river, so it can get especially thick here and I love it. It makes everything so otherworldly. Happy New Year to you and yours!
What a beautiful wish! Thank you. I wish the same for you and everyone reading this.