Staring at Walls.

Winter hangs heavy on the days, dying its blonde radiance to a deep cloudy brunette. Breath suddenly has so much more life when you can see it drift from your mouth and dissipate into the cold; and sometimes I wonder if winter is my worst enemy or my most needed season. The snow and the cold makes books, and rest, and long walks seem so much more attractive. It also makes me want to smoke my pipe, so winter must also cause cancer.

The snow is quieting in so many ways. Not only does it absorb the ambient hiss of the city, but it slows down production. Animals hibernate (except for that one maniacal squirrel that always breaks into my house and eats my trash), people call in sick and stay home as much as they can. Things just...slow...down. I love the cold.

But I hate winter driving.

This season has left me in an oddly nostalgic and sentimental state. And also (not oddly) in a very poetic mood.

I'm spending these next 2 or 3 days at my parents house. Last night I found myself, among other things, staring at the walls in my old bedroom, the, now, guest/sewing/antiques-we-have-neither-need-nor-room-for/crafts room that I am staying in. Much that sums up my high school experience is freckled across the textured walls. Holes in the shape of fists and random objects are both patched and exposed, and the carpet is tattooed with fading black spots and randomly placed paint stains. Endless nails hide along the dry wall, and I can just see my old bed, that purple table that I took out of Christ Community's dumpster, and endless collection of random instruments which has now dwindled to a couple of guitars and a violin.


I love winter because it seems to bring me to a place of solitude and, eventually, back home. I sat remembering all these things and then it brought me around to thinking about my parents. What lovely and horrible creatures parents are. For 18 years they are everything from your heroes to dictators. But I really love them, and I mean to stress that now that I realize how much I have taken them for granted.

My Dad did a lot of great things, and still does in very quiet ways. My mother, haha, I am so much like my mom. My Mom, I realized, talks out loud about what she is doing around the house. Which I often do with...just about anything, but especially when I am trying to get stuff done. Sometimes I think God created genetic inheritance just so that he would never feel the cavity of good jokes far gone. My mother is, above all things, a very sweet and enduring woman, with a gift of hospitality like I have never seen.

Then I think about my brother, David. This house is the house where we finally stopped trying to kill each other and realized that maybe we had a lot to give each other. We used to break out of the house late at night and go to the store. David would buy me all kinds of unhealthy frozen food and candy and we would sit around and watch movies. He taught me how to cuss and drink. David is a wise man. He's resourceful, and smart, and sometimes even a little fun to be around. I think I look up to my brother a lot more than he realizes. But I like him. He's a good one.

I think over all, I am just, yet again, very grateful for the people that I have been sewn together with. This is going to be a beautiful Christmas, I think...and not because I have managed to keep all forms of Christmas music out of my head until yesterday, but because I am going to make it a good Christmas.

Crap...I need to go Christmas shopping.






that is all.