The magic of winter...

I’ve taken plenty of cold, windy walks on snow-covered beaches, but I realized when a friend and I stood on the shore at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, watching thick, fluffy flakes fall, that I’d never actually been on a beach during a snowfall.

Boy, have I missed something in all these years of living in the Northeast!

I had my camera. Of course! And there was nothing I wanted more than to capture the beauty of the landscape—the sweep of the ocean and the rise of dunes with the beach between, softened and muted by the falling snow.

But the purpose of our two-hour drive had been to get some shots of one of the several snowy owls that have settled on the Plum Island for the winter. So I'd left my landscape lens in the parked car and had only my long lens on the camera. This lens would give me the focal distance I needed to get the details of a distant owl, but it would show only a narrow slice of landscape, not the snow-filled panorama I wanted at that moment.

Still...I snapped the shutter—it’s what photographers do--and I love what the camera caught. Even a tiny piece of the bigger scene looks magical. And if that had been the way the day had ended, I'd have been happy with just these images.

Continuing the owl search, we started down a boardwalk. Plump birds bartered for space on the bare branches while waiting their turn for the berries on a nearby bush. When we got closer, we saw that they were robins--sort of an unnatural sight in winter--but there were dozens. I snapped away, hoping I caught some birds with berries in their beaks. If this was all we saw for the day, I wouldn't have a complaint in the world.

Then we hit the trifecta when we spotted the snowy owl on a jetty of rocks, slippery from melted snow and sea water. It was a tricky go, maneuvering slowly and carefully so as not to fall. The goal was not to scare the snowy, not to drop camera equipment, and not to fall and get hurt--in that order. We made it! The snowy posed for quite a while before getting bored and flying to the beach.

So just when I thought I was as happy as could be, I got happier still!

A perfect winter day! And more to come!

“Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.” ~Sarah Addison Allen

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

Killing time~

I'd woken feeling stuffy headed, slightly allergy-ish, puffy-eyed, and a tad grumpy. Lots to do, little time in which to do it, school issues keeping me in a state of angst, I considered not going to David's game. But it was Saturday, the game fairly close to home-- Salem State College-- an hour or so north through Boston to the town of Salem, famous for the 1692 witch trials that saw 19 suspected witches, many of them social outcasts, hang on Gallows Hill. A change of pace was what I needed whether I wanted it or not, so I went. I squeezed in a walk around the block that enclosed Salem State's O'Keefe Center while waiting for the game to begin. Just to kill time. I get so few chances to do that. Others walking, too, passed with no eye contact, no greetings, just sharing the same planet. Two were coming toward me. Still unfocused in the distance . . . one was tall, the other short . . . two men . . . loose clothing . . . like army clothes, camouflage . . . beard and lon...

Missing Becky~

Becky~ August 19, 1991 to April 26, 2010 She was so loved, this gentle pet of mine. And how she loved us back. I've been alone in my house before, of course. Those days when my husband took the kids out for the day, being able to vacuum without a baby in one arm and a toddler, riding the vacuum cleaner like it was a bronco, was solitary pleasure. Later there were quiet days as the kids were at camp and my husband at work. And then came the bittersweet aloneness when kids left home for college and a life apart. Still, I'd always liked being alone, knowing it was short lived. This morning, after my husband pulled out of the driveway with a day full of plans, I stood in the living room feeling alone in a way I never had before. An unfamiliar emptiness and silence surrounded me. Yesterday we put our 18-year-old cat, Becky, to sleep. The decision to do so was surprisingly easy. The vet had told us Becky would let us know when it was time, and somehow she did. But ...

~Upstream and Down~

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