winter.

i live in the wrong place.  you see, i love winter.  i love cozy sweaters and wearing socks.  i love long walks through falling snow.  i love waking up to a world freshly blanketed in snow--there's nothing like the silence of that moment.  i love hot drinks and crackling fires.  i love scarves and jackets and gloves.  there's really nothing about winter that i do not like.  yet i live in southern california.  and my sisters, who both hate the snow, live in utah and upstate new york.

this year i'll get my dose of winter when i travel east for christmas.  and i hope it comes with lots of snow, complete with a snowman and maybe even a snowball fight.  just four short weeks and i'll be there, in the land of winter.  yay!!

happy.
more simple (and small) things that make me happy:

• discovering that when my 2-year-old niece B plays wii and sees my mii, she repeats my name: 'amy, amy'
• waking up smiling
• long meandering conversations with a friend
• my nieces wearing the hats and scarves i made them for christmas (in july)
• walking into my favorite thai restaurant on a busy saturday night and being greeted as a friend by all the servers i know
• knowing that saturday will bring family for a week-long thanksgiving visit--yay!
• 'lively discussions' and 'fun exchanges'
• fall in california--it feels a lot like summer, but it's different in little subtle ways
• the anticipation of pumpkin pie and homemade rolls
• having B tell me all about her snack and playing wii and her halloween costume on the phone; hearing her say 'i love you'
  
• dates that involve wandering through bookstores
• squeezing snapdragons so they snap

to be continued...

springtime.
roses are, for me, home. when i was very small, our backyard was overgrown. the side yard was a positive jungle of weeds and tall grass and ivy. we had an enormous rubber tree that dropped leaves everywhere. and my mama grew vegetables in pots. i remember eating peas in the pod fresh off the plant. but the thing i remember most is the roses. frequently my dad would give my mom a rose bush for a birthday or an anniversary. and i started learning their names even when i was small.

when i was in grade school, i loved to take a rose to my teacher. i'd ask my mom in the morning before school. and sometimes life was hectic and she was busy and the answer was no. but sometimes the answer was yes, and i was given a pair of clippers to cut the perfect blossom. and my mom would wrap the stem in wet paper towel and then in tin foil and i would carefully, and proudly, carry it to school.

eventually we re-landscaped the yard and it was no longer a jungle. but there were still roses. always roses--both inside and outside the house. it wasn't unusual for my dad to send my mom flowers. for special occasions they were usually roses (but not often red ones; they're kind of dull). but the ones i liked the very best in the house were the ones mama cut in the garden. a little bit of beauty she had planted and cultivated and brought in to share.

when i went away to school, the roses were one of the things i looked forward to most when it was time to come home (other than family, of course). i'd come home just about this time of year--maybe a week later. and the roses would be in the middle of their first spring time blooming. big beautiful blossoms of all colors. air full of heady scent.

i have my favorites of course. i love joseph's coat for it's crazy sprawl and it's gorgeous orange and yellow coloring. betty boop develops from brilliant yellow and pink, to white and red. intrigue smells sultry, with a twist of citrus. plus it's a beautiful plum purple. double delight begins with pure white petals at its heart surrounded by brilliant pink-scarlet. as it ages, its center petals change from white to red. one day, i went out mid-afternoon to visit the roses (and that's the correct description for what i do when i go to see the roses) and found the most perfect double delight with its pure white center. i went out later that same day, at the end of twilight, and that same bloom's heart had changed. it made me want to spend hours watching, just to see how the change happens. in the spring, the blooms on first prize are often as big as a salad plate. and fame gives me an almost constant abuandance of fluttery red blossoms.

when i moved back to southern california to go to school, my mom took me to the nursery and bought me some roses of my own. i loved coming home from a busy day of school and work to discover my mini roses blooming on my porch. and they managed to survive even my worst neglect (they're surprisingly hardy plants, roses). i still have my mini rose garden. my mom has turned them into habitat for one of her garden fairies.

nothing gives me peace quite like the roses. i walk into the yard to visit them and all of the worries and stress simply disappear.

i thought i'd share their beauty. wish you could be here to see them for yourself.

{the roses, top to bottom: betty boop, joseph's coat, just joey, duet, golden showers, joseph's coat, double delight, 4th of july}

color.
i was in virginia last week, which made me remember some of the many reasons i love the east. this time of year, one of the primary reasons is color. everywhere you look, the world is bursting with warmth. red. gold. leaves burning brilliant against an indian summer sky. and the world is full of promise. it’s an odd thing--death bringing hope. endings filling you with wonder, not desolation.

the first few days i was there were chilly. perfectly autumnal. gray skies. rain. making color more brilliant. sunday was brisk, sunny, clouds scudding. and monday dawned beautifully clear--a perfect Indian summer day. the world was full of magic.

after a gorgeous drive into the city from loudoun county, i started my meanderings around the city at the east building of the national gallery--one of my art meccas. and by pure serendipity, i began on the lower level (which i usually save for last). i go there for the calders. i love the rothkos and the pollocks, among other incredible works from the last fifty years. but it's the magic of the calders, with their melding of concrete and nebulous forms and their magical shadows, that draw me back to the east building every time i'm in d.c. i love them so much that i save them for last, so that their magic leaves with me. but this time i went down first. and as i walked down the last half flight of stairs into the exhibit space, i discovered big beautiful rothkos that i had never seen before. in shades of red, orange, brown, maroon. warmth and peace. as if the palette of fall had been captured and transformed into these magnificent canvases that beckon you into pure color. and in that color you find your self.

they've come.
the beautiful santa ana winds that fill the world with magic and wonder and make me want to be outside. they are just so beautiful.

autumn.
i love fall. it's almost a contradiction--plants dying, preparing for the hibernation and lifelessness of winter. but the air is practically sparkling with anticipation and expectation. promises of pure blue skies with fire-orange and gold leaves. or a stormy gray day perfect for curling up with a cup of cocoa and a good book. the happiness of family gatherings replete with mama's pumpkin pie and other yummy goodness. i think i like autumn more than any other season. and this illustration captured some of the magic i find in it.

harmony.
i was home last week, in california. a chaotic place but oddly beautiful. so strange. in one yard a sugar maple's leaves are brilliant red, suspended somewhere between living and dead, half of them fallen and the other half obstinately clinging to the tree. around the corner the decorative fruit trees blossom in mad profusion. it is december. these transplants from other climes cannot make sense of the balmy weather, the lack of definition.

when i get on the freeway, i am struck by how confused the humans are, too. i accelerate until i match the pace of others. classical music bringing peaceful beauty into my car in counterpoint to the frantically frenetic pace i am keeping while trying to follow the wildly eratic lines on the freeway. such stark contrast--beautiful and dangerous. the world on the brink of spinning out of control. there is no order to the place. but its very chaos creates an ordering principle of its own, one that liberates so that one being exists independent from the next. one holds on tightly, lagging behind normal. the other dances crazily, absurdly ahead. both beautiful; neither right; but harmonious.

grace.
i love watching snow fall. so weightless, drifting unpredictably towards earth and sometimes back upwards again. i walk in the snowfall, watching as the world is covered in grace. how odd that this light, almost bodiless substance can become the weight of destruction. branches cracking and breaking; bodies falling; roofs caving in. and if it is spring, if the beauty of rebirth has begun, the devastation is that much more heartrending--limbs loaded with blossoms bearing the weight of the heavens with no relief until they snap and plunge. i wonder about this strange relationship. i do see snow as grace--as a beautiful covering for the death of the world. unasked for, freely giving, offering the water of life. but simultaneously devastating. is this the nature of grace?