Time, in chunks

 

Yesterday morning a pair of Carolina wrens were in the lilac, belting out song. When I took the feeders out, they tried to stick around while I hung the suet, but I was just too close; they had to zip away. I was happy to hear the song, happy to see the pair. Later when I came back around the house to leave peanuts there was a new song and it wasn’t until the singer flew across the lawn I knew who it was: once again the wren. The morning was filled with a lot of sound, even a woodpecker got into things over behind my neighbor’s house. Snow was in the forecast so I expected a busy feeder day, as those that have plenty of food stuff (with no snow) will be on the lookout for something easy to obtain. Grackles, starlings and blackbirds probably; my fingers were crossed for snow and grackles.

I awoke this morning to just an inch of snow, it was still falling lightly. When at last I went out it was warmish and the snow was so very wet. It snowed for the next few hours but not much accumulation.

Our next door neighbor is out with his son building a snowman. Last year when it snowed his son was having none of it, but now he’s two and a half so the world (and he) have grown so much older. When Issac and Justine were small (just older and just younger than my neighbor’s son) we were living in Augsburg Germany. Our first winter there we had quite a lot of snow and we indulged in being out, building snow people and animals and exploring our neighborhood in its new clothes. Jerry was always concerned it was too cold to stay out, he isn’t from a place where snow was a given, he hadn’t spent every winter with snow, or cold, or how warm you get playing in the snow. We parceled the day into chunks: play, play, play go in for snacks and cocoa; repeat. Throw in lunch and a nap at some point, try to get back out again. Of course, daylight is sparse that far north in winter, so those chunks of time were perfect for two toddlers.

If I close my eyes, I can taste the snow as though it was flavored like the rest of Bavaria in sweet and sour and salty richness. I can hear the voices of Issac and Justine, their laughter and their insistence that they weren’t that cold and didn’t need cocoa quite yet, Mama. My heart cracks like ice, echoes in the cold, constricts and tries to beat in the darkness. Every molecule of the body that said, hold them, protect them does not go away, does not change back. But if I close my eyes too long I will never open them again when these memories are present. I must stay awake. Too much is coming. Dreams are no longer allowed.