Whistling

"Hey, what do you think of this photo?" I asked.

I'd snapped a self-portrait in the tea kettle that was sitting on the picnic table in our backyard. Yes, the weather has been so warm that I drank my morning cup of tea outside. And as you can see from the photo, most of the snow has melted away.

Often after I move my photos from my camera to my computer, I will grab the nearest person and make them look at the photos with me. When I showed this photo to Film Guy, who happened to be sitting near me on the couch, he nodded knowingly and said, "The reflection in the tea kettle shot. Well, that's certainly been done before."

He paused. "Except you're supposed to be naked."

"WHAT?"

The teenagers in the household have given me all kinds of grief about the absolutely innocent nude photos I've posted on my blog. "My eyes are still burning," First Extra will say, shuddering. My own sons rarely read my blog, so worried are they that they might see their Mom with some tiny bit of skin showing. And now Film Guy was suggesting a nude shot?

"It's a photo that's been all over the internet," Film Guy explained. He said that some guy posted a picture of a tea kettle, one that looked exactly like mine, on an online auction site, with a reflection of his naked self on the tea kettle. Apparently that photo started a trend called reflectoporn. I checked an urban myths website, which confirmed what Film Guy said: sometimes people trying to sell objects with reflective surfaces make sure that the online photo includes a reflection of naked body parts.

It's hard to see how reflectoporn would work as a marketing technique. I mean, who in the world would want to buy a tea kettle that showed a naked middle-aged guy with a potbelly leering from the reflection? That hardly seems a bonus. And let's face it. You don't need a higher degree in physics to figure out that, unless you live in some kind of Harry Potter book, the tea kettle that came in the mail would no longer hold the image of the weird naked guy.

I thought for a moment about taking a nude shot in the tea kettle. Just to keep up the internet tradition. But the weather, mild as it has been for January, just isn't THAT warm.

Sidewalk art

The weather today was unusually — and unnaturally — warm for January. Snowbanks melted, ditches filled with water, streams rose in the woods. Taking advantage of the dry pavement, I drove out to the main post office to renew my passport, went to the grocery store, and drove up to campus to get folders of course material that I needed. Campus was quiet — students don't come back for another week. The paved walkways at school, normally covered this time of year with hard-packed snow and ice, were decorated instead with bird droppings, in patterns that looked to me like the birds were trying to be artistic.

Invincible

Today was the day. After weeks of throbbing pain in my knee, months of having to be careful how I walked, long nights of cursing how long it takes a ligament to heal, months of stretching my leg to get it back to normal — this morning I returned to the place where I'd been injured. After a full year of dreading the moment, it was time to tackle my new and completely rational fear. The time had come to face my terror of getting off a chairlift.

The morning began with the usual last-minute rush as the kids and I raced around the house, getting our gear together, shoving it all two vehicles. We wanted to be at the ski center before the lift began running, and that meant we had to leave by 8 am. My plan was to take a run before my snowboard lesson: I'd already decided that Boy in Black, and not some random instructor, was going to be the person with me when I got off the chairlift for the first time since my injury.

"Hurry up!" I kept yelling at the kids.

"What about my green neck thing?" Shaggy Hair asked. "I can't find it."

"You don't need it, " I told him. "It's pretty warm out."

He looked at me. "But when I wear my green neck thing, I feel invincible."

After finding all manner of missing items, including the green neck gaiter, and yelling at Boy in Black about ten times to wake up, I finally got the half-asleep teenagers out the door and into the vehicles, and we took off, leaving my husband with a quiet albeit messy house to himself. By about 9 am, I had my snowboard strapped to my right foot and was sitting on the chairlift, heading upwards.

Despite the sinking feeling in my stomach, I did take a minute to look at the scene. The mountains in Snowstorm region are gentle mountains, covered with pine trees and hardwoods, with big white swatches that are the ski slopes. The weather was unseasonably warm, and the air felt soft, one of those warm days when you can take your mittens off to adjust your bindings without losing a finger to frostbite. The snow was soft, not icy, and below us, a couple of boarders were hitting the jump on the headwall. It was a perfect day for snowboarding, really, if only I could get off the lift without killing myself.

"I am so scared about this," I said to my oldest son, who was sitting right next to me, his own snowboard dangling from his right foot.

He adjusted his goggles. "Well, it's too late to change your mind."

I kept reviewing aloud what I needed to do. Turn sideways on the metal chair. Get my board down onto the ground. Get my left foot onto the stomp pad. Push off from the chair before it could knock me down. Boy in Black listened patiently, nodded, and didn't say much. He's a pretty laidback personality. This is his eighth year snowboarding, and I knew he could get out of my way no matter which way I slid.

As we approached the ramp, Boy in Black lifted the metal restraining bar, and I tried to turn sideways as much as I could. Of course, I was hampered by the fact that I was wearing heavy outdoor clothes, I was on a metal chair dangling 30 feet above the ground, and I had this long heavy snowboard strapped to my right foot.

And then, the moment came. We approached the ramp. We were close enough that I could even read the clock inside the little hut where the lift operator works.

"Just put your board down and go," Boy in Black said.

And I did it. With my right foot strapped in and my left foot on the stomp pad, I coasted away from the chair lift and stopped in a patch of new snow. When I finally took a breath, I could feel all kinds of adrenaline surging through my bloodstream.

Later this evening, after a full day of boarding, and enough trips up the chair lift that it no longer scared me, I told the dramatic story to First Extra, who doesn't snowboard but had come over to hang out with Boy in Black at the end of the day.

"It was one of the scariest things I've ever done, " I told him.

"Ever?" he said.

"Well, maybe in the top 100 scariest moments."

Then I thought about it some more. "I can remember feeling just a little scared right before Daughter was born — because I'd never had a baby before — but that was different because I wasn't dreading it. This was something I've been dreading for a whole year."

First Extra said in his usual dry way. "Well, having a baby is natural. Jumping off a metal chair with a piece of wood strapped to your foot is not."

Exactly.

Headed to the chair

This afternoon, I piled socks, mittens, and gloves onto the table, trying to match them up. I searched the house for anything we were missing, and yelled to the kids to get their stuff together. "Does everyone have a helmet? Whose goggles are these? With-a-Why, did you try your boots on to make sure they still fit?"

Boy in Black took the snowboards to the ski shop yesterday to get them waxed. We made a trip this afternoon to get a few things we needed: a new pair of boots for Boy in Black, a new neck gaiter for me, some new boarding socks to replace worn out ones. We picked up Skater Boy on the way, and I called Blonde Niece to make sure she had gotten her stuff together. Now that the holidays are over, snowboarding season has begun. Early tomorrow morning, we'll head to the ski slopes.

Anyone who read my blog last winter probably remembers that I injured my knee on the ski slopes. I think I mentioned the injury in every blog post from the end of January until the middle of March. I stretched a ligament (the medial collateral ligament, to be specific) and pinched the cartilage. The worst part is that I hurt myself on the very first run of the season. Well, actually, I hurt myself BEFORE the first run of the season, since getting off the chairlift was what caused the leg to twist in a way that a leg is not supposed to twist. I ended up missing the whole season.

The good news is the my knee is fully recovered, and I have no lingering fear of snowboarding.

The bad news is that I am terrified of the damned chair lift.

A chair lift, I keep explaining to anyone who will listen, is designed for someone wearing skis. It's very easy to get off a chair lift when you are wearing skis. You just push off straight forward and ski down the little hill, all poised and graceful. Even little kids can get off a chairlift with ease when they are wearing skis.

Getting off a chair lift is completely different when you've got this long stiff snowboard awkwardly attached to one leg and not the other. You've got to twist your body sideways on a metal chair, stick one leg forward despite the heavy board dangling from it, shove the board down so that it will make contact with the icy ramp, get your loose foot to magically find the stomp pad on the board, and then somehow move sideways down the little slope before the chairlift knocks you in the head. Getting off a ski slope chairlift while wearing a snowboard is a completely unnatural act. It's like trying to ride a horse while wearing ice skates or playing hockey with snorkel fins on.

Wish me luck.

Trouble

Overheard

The dentist, a man with silver hair and the traditional white lab coat, pulled his mask down from his face as he came out of the maze of dentist offices and into the waiting room. A teenage girl trailed behind him. He spoke to the woman sitting opposite me, clearly the girl's mother.

"We had a little problem, " he said. "Even with the novacaine, she says it still—"

"I know," said the girl's mother. "You had to give her another shot."

He started to say something, then stopped, looking puzzled. He turned to look at the teenage girl standing next to him.

"And you only did the one side so she's going to need another appointment," the mother finished.

His head bounced back in her direction like a dentist bobble head. "Um, how ..."

"She sent me a text message," the mother explained.

"From the chair?" he asked.

"Yep," said the daughter. She pulled a cell phone out of her jeans and waved it in the air.

The dentist threw up his hands. "I think it's time for me to retire."

Winter sunlight

Blue morning light

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is look out the window to check on the weather. Often a fresh snow has fallen during the night, giving the lawn and woods that clean, sparkling look. A few inches of snow covers muddy tracks, smoothes edges, and makes everything look new. If more than a foot has fallen, I get dressed to go out and shovel, but otherwise, I admire the snow and then climb back in bed to snuggle under the quilt a few minutes more, listening sleepily while my husband attempts to get our youngest son to come down for breakfast. With-a-Why likes to eat his cereal and then come climb into bed to snuggle with me for a few minutes at the beginning of the day, so I feel it's my parental obligation to stay cosily in bed.

Eventually, though, With-a-Why has to brush his teeth and get dressed for school, and I go downstairs to feed the cats. By then the house is fairly warm, but a blast of cold air rushes into the house when I open the sliding glass door to let in any cats that stayed out during the night. If we are getting a warm spell, the back step will be covered with lovely ice crystals, formed from the water that drips from the eaves. On windy days, powdery snow dances in circles across the yard, smoothing out the edges of footprints.

Whenever it doesn't snow for a few days, the snow on the ground becomes a map, a record of activities. Out front, it's easy to see that a flurry of activity took place around the pile of snow which the kids are making into a ramp. Rabbits leave their distinctive tracks when they go running across the side yard, and sometimes I'll see the trail of a fox. The deep tracks are from the hooves of white-tailed deer who come to browse for food along the edges of lawns and roads. A big section of churned-up snow in the backyard means that Boy in Black and Shaggy Hair led a gang out to play Ultimate Frisbee during the night. When, later in the day, I pull on a coat and boots for a walk in the woods, I come across all kinds of tracks and rubbings and scat, reminders of all the other creatures who share the land with us.



Cat paw prints on my back step in the blue light of early morning.

New Year promises

When I woke up on New Year's Day, the house was quiet. The floor of the boys' room was filled with sleeping bodies, teenage boys wrapped in blankets. My husband, who is normally the first to wake up because he's in charge of the alarm clock, breakfast, and school lunches, had given himself permission to sleep late and was still cuddled under the down quilt on our bed, taking a much-deserved day off. The downstairs bore the traces of an all-night party: guitars propped against furniture, empty glasses on the counter, drumsticks set aside on the window sill, the piano bench pulled out, sheet music piled on an amp, a stack of board games on the floor near the fireplace.

I dressed quickly, left my sleeping household, and drove just a mile up the road for what has become a New Year's tradition: brunch with some of my friends. We gathered in a farmhouse that was built more than a century ago, the home of Makes Bread. Gusts of wind blew snow across the road and rattled the windows, but inside her kitchen, the warm air smelled of chili and gingerbread. We stood around her kitchen counter or sat around the big wooden table, eating leftover holiday food we had brought from our homes, plus all the amazing food that Makes Bread always provides.

We talked about the holidays, about our extended families, about children and grandchildren and parents. Mystic Woman told us about a new year's tradition that involves putting various items into a paper bag, leaving her house before midnight, and then making sure the paper bag is the first thing that crosses the threshold after midnight. She's a deeply spiritual woman who is quite willing to poke fun at herself. "Yeah, there I am, out in the snow in my pajamas, clutching a paper bag, peering through the windows to see if the ball has dropped yet. The neighbors think I'm crazy."

In a conversation about animal spirits, I repeated what the group has heard before: if I have an animal totem, it's the snake. It's not the animal I would choose — I'd prefer something a bit warmer and cuddlier — but it seems to be the animal that has chosen me, appearing in both dreams and real life. Healer Man, a down-to-earth guy who works as a plumber but studies mysticism as well, repeated what I've often heard about the snake as a messenger of change, transformation, and growth.

"I don't like change," I told him. "Change has always scared me." I can remember being frightened to go to kindergarten, just absolutely terrified to leave the comfort of home and go off to that big brick building, a new stage in my life. I am not someone who seeks out change. I still live within a few miles of where I was born, I wear the same clothes just about every day, I have had the same job most of my adult life, and I'm married to my high school boyfriend.

He laughed. "Exactly." Apparently, an animal totem isn't supposed to reflect who you are, but challenge you to grow beyond yourself.

So that's one of the themes I am going to put on my list of New Year's promises to myself. I am going to embrace change. Because change is inevitable at my age: my daughter will graduate from college this year, which means she will move away from Snowstorm Region, a dramatic change for me as a parent.

I've got other New Year promises on my list too. I made a truce with a close friend to make detachment a theme, to step back from emotionally fraught situations and put things in perspective. And my third theme, I think, will be balance. That's something I've often discussed with Artist Friend. I like all the parts of myself, even the stubborn streak and the quick temper and the crazy passionate parts and the impulsive words, but I feel so much healthier when I can all keep all of that in balance.

Of course, all the themes and resolutions and promises I've heard from my friends add up pretty much to the same thing: 2008 as a year of healing. In a warm kitchen, surrounded by friends, I felt hopeful about the year, optimistic even about the November election. Snow swirled against the windows as we packed up food. My friends sent most of the leftover food home with me, since I've got hordes of hungry teenagers who will devour it. Quilt Artist and Signing Woman spooned food into plastic containers and bags while I found my coat. We hugged and made promises to ourselves, to each other, and to our friends and our families. And then drove back out into the snowstorm.

Snap

They are people I've never met. But I feel like I know them. Because I've been looking at photos they've taken, one photo every day all year long.

At the beginning of last year, I noticed bloggers talking about the 365 photo project. The goal of the project was to snap a photo every single day and post it to a blog. By mid-January, I was reading a bunch of 365 blogs.

It was fascinating to catch glimpses into the lives of people I'd never met. I'd click on Ianqui's 365 blog to see shots of Big City Like No Other, often taken from unexpected angles. Her portraits of strangers always made me wonder what narratives lay behind the people in the pictures. Bright Star has said that she appreciates the flowers in the northeast because she grew up in the desert, and just looking at all her photos of flowers made me see in a new way these plants I've known my whole life. I wasn't looking Julie Unplugged's photos for long before I realized that she and I were at similar stages in our lives, raising teenagers and letting go of adult children. I could practically smell the hay in Ampersand's barn photos. I was often surprised at how Jayfish or Overread could take incredibly shots of very ordinary bits of life. And I was touched by the emotional journey that Billie was taking through her photos.

Inspired by the 365 photo bloggers, I took a photo each day last year. Well, usually I took more than one photo: using a digital camera is way too much like eating popcorn. I took photos every single day, and most days, I posted one of those photos to my blog. I didn't set up a separate 365 blog because I am a writer, not a photographer. I use a point-and-shoot camera, and I don't have Photoshop either. I used photos as writing prompts rather than stand-by-themselves blog posts, so I wasn't exactly following the 365 rules. I am not so good at following rules.

But still, I liked hanging out at the edge of the 365 community, looking at their photos, imagining narratives that might go with their photos, and absorbing that creative energy. I was curious to see what photography could teach me about writing.

I found that a few months into the year, I was using my camera the way I have always used journals. I'd snap a photo of something as a reminder to write about that experience. (Sometimes neither the photo nor the piece of writing was something that ended up on my blog.) I tend to take photos that show landscapes and seasonal change, since connection to place is something I write about. And mostly, I take photos that tell a story, because narrative is what interests me.

The photos did change what I'd write. I never realized before just how much I like to write lyrical descriptions about place. I'd start to write a bunch of descriptive details and then I'd say to myself, "Oh, wait. I'm using a photo that shows the place. So no point in describing it." I think my usual mode of writing is to describe to readers an image inside my head, and it's a bit disconcerting when that image is a photo that the readers are going to see. Suddenly, I've got to come up with something else.

The drawback to taking photos each day is that it took time away from writing, and that's one reason that I am hesitant to invest more time or money into a decent camera or photoshop. Time is such a valuable commodity in my life. But then ... when I went for a walk at Pretty Colour Lake the other day with my friend Poet Woman and her husband, they let me play with their cameras and lenses. I took macro shots of broken ice! I took action shots of Tall Bearded running down the beach. I zoomed in to foucs on ducks on the surface of the lake. It was so cool to have all these options! And I have to admit, I found myself planning what camera to buy next. Because even though photography can be time-consuming, I can think of worse ways to spend my time than walking outside on an overcast day, searching for beauty.



Here is one of the few photos that I took with my own camera on my walk with Poet Woman. I spent most of my time playing with her cameras.