Belonging To Yourself
One day this week, on the way to the mailbox, I paused to hear the moaning wind in the cedars on the ridge above the house. I knew instinctively there was a cold penetrating wind on the flat lands that I rarely experience here on the creek. Perhaps the shelter of the circling hills is why I don’t dread winter as much as others.
That wind in the cedars reminded me of a quote from William Cullen Bryant when he wrote: “The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year. Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and bare.”
I suppose most view winter in that context but I never have because I love the changing seasons. Somehow it reassures me that promises to us from a higher power will be fulfilled. Every year the summer ends and autumn returns and if anyone would wish it to be otherwise they also probably want a full moon every night. Well, wouldn’t that be boring?
In winter I long to be an artist so that I could place, on canvas, the beauty I see when I look at a winter landscape. I wouldn’t need bright splotches of color that are required for summer scenes. The pastels of spring or the brilliance one sees in the fall. Instead, grays, subdued hues of brown and stark white would paint what some call the bleakness. As I travel along the old creek road my mind sees the landscape in bold free strokes of the jutting rock overhangs, the deep green of the cedar, creating miniature vignettes.
Squirrel nests are no longer hidden, a hornet’s nest high up comes into sight. The red tailed hawk on a barren limb surveys the bottomland for a meal, while the buck brush edges along a lane provide cover for a huddled rabbit. Not noticed in summer, a hay rake sits as if in an unemployment line, awaiting another harvest.
In the bottom pasture land, the neighbor’s cattle nuzzle into the big round rolls of hay, away from the whistling winds and a large herd of deer graze in the gloaming, their white flags up and ever vigilant to make a frantic dash to their haven in the deep woods of the hillside.
Glistening needles shine in the sunlight on the formidable thorn trees with no leaves to hide their threatening spikes. The tall imperial sycamores with their scaling bark revealing snow white trunks resembling stately columns along the creek bank and the one lone member of that species that graces my upper drive.
That one provides a safe sanctuary for squirrels making their way down to the ear of corn on their little feeder in my backyard. A haven when the dogs notice their intrusion and find it their duty to chase them back into the woods.
Winding my way home on an early evening I see Cemetery silhouettes standing firmly against the wind in the ancient church yard. Names cut in stone and all that is left to define a once stalwart member of the community. Around the corner in the distance, the yellow light in my neighbor’s kitchen window makes a glow that reassures, inside it is warm and cozy.
Perhaps I do need more colors on the painter’s palette. Not just for the evergreens and glowing lights but for the colorful birds that have chosen to live in my woodland above my backyard. They seem to gather at the edge of the woods for morning songs and evening vespers.
The activity around my bird feeders outside my kitchen windows is busier than McDonald’s during the lunch hour. These greedy little feathered guys scatter their food as they frantically gobble at the seed, eating like it’s their last meal before the execution. If I neglect to refill the feeder I have one male Cardinal that perches on the window sill and pecks away until I appear. His message is loud and clear: “Hey you in there, more feed please!”
In the winter my visitors encompasses Carolina Wrens, a few Blue Jays, Cardinals, Tufted Titmice, Junos, Nuthatches, Towhees, the finches that includes the Purple, the House and the Golden. Last but not least are the Woodpeckers. I have the Hairy, the Downy, the red-Bellied, the Redheaded, a pair of northern Flickers and the Pileated. The latter has a mate and they can devour half a suet cake in one setting. I don’t mind though as their lovely flashes of color adds the reds to my winter painting.
Winter is a time of frozen. It’s often called the “Dead of winter,” It’s the intervening time between Christmas and the first spring crocus. Somehow it’s not dead to me and if you look, it can have a lot of life. I only wish God had given me the gift to put it on a canvas to show the world how I see it.
There is a privacy to the interval of winter which no other season gives. In spring, summer and fall people seem to have open season on each other. Only in the winter, in the remote country of the creek, can you have longer stretches filled with winter colors and you can savor belonging to yourself.
