Winter Waters

Photo by Tom Baugh

 

A recent trip to Looking Glass Falls and we found winter all about us.  No leaves on the trees, colors of brown/grey/slate and the white foam of the falls. 

Photo by Barbara Shadwick

This is the time when we wrap warm cloaks around ourselves and savor a hot cup of tea.  When layering sweaters and coats and mittens and hats begins before we venture outdoors.  When the skies threaten snow - and some of us wait for it eagerly while others await with dread.

Photo by Tom Baugh

Its stark beauty is in such contrast to the lushness of spring, summer and even fall.

Photo by Barbara Shadwick

 

My heart is filled with sadness these days with the recent events in Connecticut.  This is a time when I have no words that can capture what I'm feeling...

"When you do things from your soul you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears".  - Rumi

"A Ten O'Clock Scholar"

" a diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar!

What make you come so soon?

You used to come at ten o'clock;

Now you come at noon."

    old nursery rhyme
 



Here's my 'Ten O'clock Scholar' - all decked out in flannel and corduroy for the cold days ahead.

He is reading so much better these days, since he got his glasses.

 

Just so he doesn't forget his ABC's!

"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." - Marcel Proust

Comfy Cozy

This is 'my' time of the year.  Its cold outside, but the sun still shines.  I find myself building my studio nest - with supplies and ideas to tide me over the long winter months. 

 

 During my childhood, when I had colds, my mother would rub my chest with Vicks VapoRub (I don't even know if they still make it) and I lay warmed with flannel cloths on my chest.  I would then snuggle down and fall alseep - safe, warm and cared for. 

Ever since then I have always loved flannel fabric.  I often wear a flannel shirt in my studio on cold mornings - loving the touch and feel of it - and of course there are flannel sheets and flannel pjs.

These days I'm moving the flannel out of the bedroom and the closet by collecting a batch with which to sew.  I  can see doll dresses and shirts, vests and hats -- all manner of 'cold-weather' doll clothing lies before me. 

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort." - Jane Austen

"Hope"

 Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all...

 

 

I love these words.  What keeps us going when things are bad?  What helps light our way each day as we wake to greet the world?  What strong sense, somewhere deep within, allows light to break through when everything seems quite hopeless?
 

 

This little doll shows the bird in the cage - who certainly must sing in hope that one day the door will be open and he might fly free.  Perhaps Hope's key can open not only the birdcage door but that door that sometimes seems closed to each of us.
 

 

With hope comes our strength - that wellspring within that keeps all of us alive and aware of who we are and waiting for whatever miracles and magic might come our way.

 

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

and on the strangest sea;

It asked a crumb of me.

 

Emily Dickinson

 



My very special thanks to my friend Phyllis who sent me all of the fabric that I used to make this doll.

Crabapple

Our yard is filled with native plants -- I have had to almost lay myself down in front of a non-native plant to save it from withdrawal.  Each year, more and more of the introduced plants get reintroduced some place else. 

One of the last remaining non-native trees is the Asian Crabapple.  It sits directly in front of our house.  To remove it would mean leaving an empty hole - visually.  And so this 'foreigner' lives another year to show us lovely blooms in the springtime and these wonderful 'berries' in the fall. 

How nice to have a couple of branches in the house - the berries are such a perfect holiday compliment, almost as if they were created for just this purpose.

"A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked." - Anais Nin