Outing

I had guessed that Scooter would hate the snow like he hates the rain. That he would press his paws into white the first time and glance back at me, bewildered. That he would stick to the edge, do his business, and scurry back to the door. But the shar-pei in him that wrinkles his forehead, keeps his ears small and silky, and makes him hate the rain remained hidden today.

No, he bounded out my parents' back porch onto a half-inch of snow and didn't stop running circles until I lured him back with a cookie. The little guy loves snow, so says the husky in him. So says his relation to me. It's been two years since I've seen snow--that freak winter storm that shut down Spartanburg for three days at the beginning of 2011. That was the year much of the natural balance of my environment was off. Things fell apart. The world froze over. We all recovered in 2012.

You miss snow, but you forget how cold it is, how your feet shrink up, how your eyelashes collect flakes and nearly freeze. But it's worth it. I ran around my elementary school's playground today with my dog and then walked him home to my parents', his keepers while I'm in Hutchinson. He's good for them, a change of routine. I still haven't seen it, but my mom tells me about walking Scooter to the vet each morning just to say hello to the girls there. I imagine Scooter pulling her along and her purse bouncing more than usual against her hip. I imagine my dad being led around corners by my golden pup, and I smile. They have not been dog people, so Scooter is teaching them.

Meanwhile, I'm snuggling with my man while the world turns over. That's right, snuggling. It's the only way to live.

Fun

G, my 'Little Sister,' and I had our holiday hangout today. It began with Imagination Station, moved to Wreck It Ralph, and finished with a little hike along the Duncan Park Lake.

She loves Scooter, and Scooter loves her.

She's pretty special, and she will go far.

The best book club there is

We meet every six weeks and then have the liveliest discussions about books (Gone Girl, this month). It's a beautiful thing. These women are part of my Spartanburg family, and I'm so grateful to them for welcoming me. Love!

Kristi, Liz, Sara, Susan, Erin, Rebecca, Devon, and Ana. xo

Sunrise over Duncan Park

A cloud can be whatever you intend;
Ostrich or leaning tower or staring eye.
       But you have never found
A cloud sufficient to express the sky.

--from "Rural Reflections" by Adrienne Rich

On hiding

"For we must have hiding, places to lick our wounds, if only for a little while. I am troubled by this, and moved. We must have hiding, places where we can drop all pretenses not to just be ourselves but to dissolve into something else. We must have hiding, because we are not private people after all; we are in our own dreams the pull of the same ocean, waves that break and crest together. We can't avoid our human obligations. We must have hiding, because it is only here, away from the processes of society and people-forming that the divine kernel of ourselves is lit and stays glowing among the hypocrisies of the day; we hide because we need to, to let the fragile wick catch fire, burn innermost, keep going, keep going."

--from "Dreams I Had of Hiding" by Robert Vivian

On heritage

"Strange how we'd wanted to get as far away from that life as possible, we'd wanted to escape any chance of daily reminders, and yet all three of us were using art to express and re-create and revisit the past.

Heritage.

The farm would always be ours, even if we were no longer there. We could claim it in writing, in music.

--from "The Orchard" by Theresa Weir

Kansas