winter – Clara Hsu

Winter Thoughts

It’s easy to give up. I did, after a year of blogging, simply stopped. Somehow my lack of sleep and the storm outside make me feel isolated from the world. The house is quiet. The cats are curled up next to the heater, burning their fur and noses. Hello!

This is not just another winter. The end of the world came and went. We wondered, rejoiced, and also wept for the dead children in Newtown. The meaning of Christmas, however, is still shopping.

Christmas dinner: everyone has some kind of diet restrictions.

When I was young I didn’t care to go home for the holidays. Now I miss my children but understand that they have to share their time with others. We play musical chairs.

Tying up loose ends. Binding books. The year is all in the poetry.

Image from fotolia.com

The Longest Night

Emerged from the longest night, we have stepped through another portal. Last night at Sacred Grounds there were music and poetry. We read poems about the Solstice. The mood was hearty and celebratory.

Transformation takes place in stealth, where there is no resistance. It needs an open gateway before the magic can work its way through. I felt it when I saw my son Lawrence yesterday. Our years of living apart has given him the freedom to live his life according to his own design. My mind went back to the struggles we had when he was small. In the darkest moment I thought I would never see the light.

But he and I have both emerged and transformed. The longest night was behind us. We stood at the threshold of a new dawn and said a loving farewell.

End of the Year

What does the end of the year feel like? Well, energy is diminishing and there is pining for something new. I feel this acutely. What has begun with great enthusiasm at the beginning of the year is becoming a commitment. Maybe it has to do with shortened daylight and winter cold. “It IS the dying season.” A friend had said. But the birthing season, which is right around the corner, also begins with darkness.

Maybe that’s why we party, to celebrate the last of the shedding. What else are we going to do when the end is near? It’s terrible for school students to have finals this week. It’s not a suitable time to squeeze information into the brain—like giving a dying man a booster shot, making living artificial.

Sleep. The bears, the chipmunks, the frogs, the snakes, the turtles have it right, so that there is renewed energy to welcome the dawn.

Herbs and Spices

My neighbor Susan has an herb garden of rosemary, basil, sage, bay leaves… She also grows lemons, pears, tomatoes and apples. When the picking season is over she preserves the lemons with salt and olive oil, adding cinnamon sticks and cloves for flavor. The salted lemon is a Moroccan specialty that the dish tajin (stew) is incomplete without it.

Each winter Susan brings me a jar of the salted lemon and clippings of a variety of herbs. In the summer she brings lavender. I cherish these gentle gifts, and when the aroma fills the house when I put them in my cooking I think of her.

Her face when we parted/a parting I can never forget/and for the keepsake she left it /printed on the moon. (Saigyo, 1118-1190)