S. Kay Murphy's Blog, page 33

An update, gratitude and a request

Neighbor Rob called last night. He'd run into Pavel, our Baldy neighbor who took the black dog home. Rob thanked him again for doing so. Pavel's response was "that dog loves us." Of course she does. Pavel and his boys dote on her, and she has made herself comfortable with them. Happy, happy ending.


Yesterday I attended an authors' "Meet and Greet" at the Sun City Library. I took four copies of my book, Tainted Legacy with me—because that's all I had, since my stupid publisher failed to ship my order (placed November 26)—and sold all four by noon. Of course, The Grandson gets the credit for that; he is great about talking up the book. Just between us, I think older women like to talk to him because he's handsome and personable. Before you know it, they're pulling money out of their wallets and handing it to him. He is my best promoter, my banker and my writer-roadie. Love that kid. While Ben was selling books, I was chatting it up with other folks, mostly other authors. Martin Lastrapes was also there, promoting his book, and he seemed to draw more interest than anyone else. Maybe that's just my perception; Martin is a former student of mine (college, not high school). I've loved watching him progress as a writer, and I know that he will eventually out-shine me (if he hasn't already), which pleases me no end. The kid could write before I ever met him. I just tried to encourage him to pursue it as a career.

Life is short, dear readers, and I am thankful every day for the great things in my life. I live in a beautiful place. Every day I go to work and teach kids who are smart, funny and charming, making my days fly by. My kids and grandkids are all healthy and well right now. And there is so much more….

All of that is to say this: Sometimes we get so busy having a good time, we forget to think of those who are in need. Last week, when I was looking for a safe place for the black dog, I contacted HOPE (Helping Out Pets Everyday), a rescue group in Upland. They're a great group, staffed by volunteers who work hard for free and truly care about the animals they shelter. Margaret Coffman sent me back an email which opened my eyes to how much this group is currently struggling. We all know that with the downturn in economics, people haven't been donating as much to charities. HOPE has experienced a lack of funds in recent days. In addition, families hit hard by the recession, unable to pay their bills, have had to give up their pets, over-burdening every shelter and rescue group in the country. HOPE is no exception.

About now you're thinking about doing your taxes for 2011, wishing you'd made more charitable donations so you'd have more deductions. If part of your New Year's resolution was to give more abundantly to those in need, please consider a donation to HOPE rescue. They are a small group but they're giving of themselves in a huge way, providing food, shelter and stable foster homes for dogs and cats until they can be adopted. Making a cash donation is a click away using Paypal from the HOPE website, or you can send a check to: P.O. Box 2005, Upland, CA 91785. You can also find HOPE on Facebook—and when you do, you'll see the photos of the seven puppies they're currently fostering. Too cute!!

The Black Dog, Part 2

Last Sunday, one week ago, was when I first touched the black dog. That night, she slept on some old bath mats I tossed out on the ground by the back door. On Sunday night, I had borrowed some dog food from Jimmy, a neighbor, and Monday morning, when I found her curled in a ball like a puppy, sleeping, I went outside to feed her. She whimpered and licked my hand—then saw the food bowl and immediately sat, waiting. Someone had taught her to wait for her food. As soon as I put the bowl down, she frantically consumed every piece while I went back inside to get ready for work.


I thought about her all the way down the mountain. She's a beautiful dog. How anyone could just leave her, I could not fathom.

I came almost straight home for work, stopping only to pick up a bag of dog food. No dog. I tried tapping the food bowl on the stones of the back deck. Nothing. Did something happen to her? Did someone on the trail decide she was a nice dog, nice enough to take home? I hated not knowing.

Just in case, I left a bowl of food out on the deck for her.

In the morning, there she was, curled in a ball on her make-shift bed. When I walked outside, she jumped around and whined as if I'd gone on a long vacation and just arrived home. I fed her again, left for work again. This time when I came home, there she was, wandering in the woods just above the cabin. She loped down to me when I called her. I gave her time to eat some food, then came back outside with an old nylon dog collar I had… a small vestige of hope that someday another dog would lie on the floor by my bed at night.

I told her to sit. She sat immediately, looking at me expectantly. I reached around her neck and snapped on the collar. She still sat.

"Let's go for a walk," I told her. Without leashing her, I simply headed up the road toward the waterfall. She raced ahead of me. But like any good dog, she stopped thirty yards above me and looked back. I knew what she was thinking: "Why in heaven's name are you so slow?" I stopped and called her, just to see if she would return to my whistle. She did. And on we went.

We walked all the way to the falls in that pattern, me stopping every hundred yards or so to call her back to me, then rewarding her with praise and pats when she returned. She was nervous at the waterfall with other people around; she whimpered and stayed close, the fear rising in her again. So we turned around and headed back. She knew the way, but, like a good dog, still stopped to look back for me every so often.

On Wednesday evening I posted an ad on craigslist, explaining her situation and offering her for adoption to someone with a yard who would take her into the house and treat her like family. The next morning, there were five emails in response, two from dog lovers outraged at her abandonment, three from people who said, "I'll take her!" All three flaked out within twenty-four hours.

By Friday afternoon, I was stressed out and so anxious I was having nightmares about her at night. I couldn't bring her in; she seemed to want to chase anything small, and my little Sugar Plum was having her own anxiety attacks, hiding behind and atop furniture, growling every time she saw the dog outside. Snow was predicted in less than 36 hours. What would I do if she were outside in a snowstorm? Already the temperature had dropped so much at night, I'd pulled the comforter from the extra bed and dragged it outside for her to curl into.

As I was standing on the deck with her, stroking her soft puppy ears and wondering what to do, Jimmy came up. He told me that Pavel, a man of local fame in Mt Baldy for being big, colorful and an ardent hiker, had recently lost a dog that had died at 17 after a good long life. That dog was a lab mix… and Pavel and his three sons had been looking for a new dog.

I wish I'd thought to take a photo yesterday when Pavel's boys were on the back deck, getting to know the black dog. They were patient and empathetic. And they immediately loved her. Who wouldn't? The best photo opportunity would have been when they left—the dog in the back seat of Pavel's car, her ears up, the tip of her pink tongue showing, flanked by a young boy on either side, their arms around her in an embrace of affection and hope.

To those of you whose hearts were breaking along with mine: She's safe now. And trust me, she'll never want for affection or attention. It cost me fifty bucks for a big bag of kibble, a leash, some chew toys and a food bowl. That moment, watching her drive away with her new family… absolutely priceless.

The Black Dog, Part I

Standing on the retaining wall behind my cabin, she looks like a black wolf. A skinny black wolf. Her coat is short and dry and it shows the shadows of her ribs, the haunches that are defined by starvation. Despite her condition, her brown eyes are clear. Her ears are always pricked, listening… trying to understand.


She appeared one afternoon some weeks ago, before Christmas, slinking between the cabins, sniffing the air, looking for food. All of us—Jimmy, Tammy, Eric, Brenda, Rob and myself—tried to ignore her. Jimmy has Lucky, a husky that someone brought to the mountain and left behind. Rob has TJ, the world's sweetest and reddest golden retriever. Eric and Brenda have a small dog and a kitten. I have Sug, of course… and no place for a dog. We all hoped she belonged to someone on the mountain, some new cabin owner who was too ignorant to keep his dog at home.

But no. Weeks have gone by. She's learned to make the rounds of the cabins, looking for food. I thought it was the little night hawk snatching up the dead mice I dumped out on the wall. I'm sure now it was the black dog. And though I haven't seen her there, I'm sure she heads down to the campground every day (or more likely at night), scooping up the detritus of irresponsible visitors.

She's lucky, really. Usually by this time of year we have a foot or two of snow on the ground. But it's only a matter of time.

Yesterday, watching her trot around on my back deck, her tail tucked between her legs, I'd had enough. I put a bowl of dry cat food out for her. She ran to it, inhaled it and licked the ground around the bowl. I sat outside and talked to her for awhile, at a distance, of course, so she wouldn't feel threatened.

This morning when she came round, I sat on the back step with another bowl of cat food, a handful of it in my hand. She stood for a long time watching me, then made a decision. She trotted forward to my outstretched hand and gobbled up the food I offered. I quickly gave her another handful, and she ate it greedily. Then I set the bowl down, and while she ate, I petted her head and neck. When I brought out a second bowl of food, I told her to sit and she did. I gave her the food, and when she finished, I removed the filthy leather collar that was so tight it made her cough when she drank water. She looked at me, wagged her tail, licked my hand, and held out her paw. We shook.

"Nice to meet you, girl," I told her.

There is a mythology that a dog or cat will 'survive on its own' if left in the forest. It's a belief perpetuated by ignorant people. These are the same people—and I use that term loosely—who are too ashamed or embarrassed or proud to take an animal they can no longer care for to a shelter or rescue group. So they bring it to the mountain, dump it out and drive away, leaving it behind like some discarded piece of trash. These are very lucky people… because I haven't been around to see them do it. God and all her angels help them if I do.

News Flash

Sugar Plum... and Boo
I don't want to disappoint anyone, but….
The world is not going to end in 2012.
Tell ya how I know:
First off, I just got news from the nice Chicken Soup folks that my piece on Sugar Plum will be included in the upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul: I Can't Believe My Cat Did That! The book doesn't come out until late in the year, and I know Sug would be particularly disappointed if her book doesn't get as much attention as Boo's book did.
Next off, I will be finishing the long-awaited dog book in the next couple of months, to be released some time this coming summer. I've promised the spirits of Sandy, Rufus, Sapo, Niki, Alex, Ellie, Ian, and Osa that this book will honor them as the good dogs they were (and still are, always, alive in my memory).
In addition, I will (finally) publish Ghost Grandma, the YA novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo six years ago. Yay! I love that book!
Then there's that presidential election thing going on. We gotta see how it turns out, right? Enough said; I don't want to alienate any readers with my intense political rantings. Mouth closed. Tongue quiet….
Best of all, some strange and wonderful things have been happening with Tainted Legacy. From what I can tell from TL's Facebook page and my Amazon stats, the book seems to have taken off in other parts of the country besides Missouri. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I am grateful to the Universe that the story of Bertha Gifford continues to be told (even though she doesn't like it when people talk about her—yes, Great-Grandma, I knooooow).
And my grandson will graduate high school… and start college. Wow….
And anyway, we're not getting out of this as easy as all that. We've created a lot of problems for Mother Earth with our greed and consumerism and self-centeredness. Just like when we were kids and made a mess and Mom came along to tell us, "You're not going anywhere until this mess is cleaned up!" so the Universe will hold us accountable. We have many lessons yet to be learned. I'm still trying to remember to stand up straight and not slouch. (OK, Mom, OK!)

Osa, my dog, my soulmate, will be featured in the upcoming Lessons I Learned from the Dogs that Saved Me.


The Things We Hold Dear Part 2

(Christmas Bear)
In September of 1977, my oldest son was born. For a year prior to his birth, we had fought with Doris, our narrow-minded, power-hungry bigot of a caseworker from Children's Home Society. My husband and I had told her that we would adopt a child of any race. She had responded by asking, "Any race?" We knew what she meant. "I can't think of any race I would exclude," my husband tossed back at her. She was not pleased. For a year we looked at available children. We wanted a girl close in age to our daughter, and there were several ready to be adopted. But each time we found one, Doris thwarted our inquiry with some excuse. "She's too far away" (San Francisco) or "Her caseworker thinks she should be an only child." Really? We knew what all the stalling was about.


In August, after we'd been approved to adopt for a year, I confronted her on the phone one day and let her know I was prepared to request another caseworker if she didn't open her mind to interracial adoption. In that conversation, she told me about a woman who was pregnant at that time. The baby's father was a different race. "I have you folks in mind for that baby," she said. I honestly thought she'd made it all up—until she called me a month later and told me that child had been born. "He's the color of coffee beans," she told me on the phone. "We don't care what color he is," I told her defiantly. But wouldn't you know, his nickname—at first as a joke, but you know how these things go—became Beanie Man.

For Christmas that year, a dear friend, Janet Lockett, made us a Christmas Angel for the top of our tree… a Christmas Angel with brown "skin" and black, curly hair. It was perfect. And for the next three decades, it topped our tree every year. That little angel outlived my marriage and was still at the top of our tree in 1994 for my grandson's first Christmas.

But after I moved to the mountain in 2007, I didn't feel the need to put up a tree (since I'm literally surrounded by them). So the little angel stayed in a box in the basement that year… and the next… and the next.

Last year, I was feeling pretty blue, it being the first Christmas without my mom, the second without my brother Dan. On an afternoon of reminiscing about Christmases past (as the Spirit of Christmas Past would have us do from time to time), I decided to go looking for all the decorations that had meaning for me. Up from the basement came all the boxes, and several hours later, the cabin was blinking and twinkling with tiny white lights and candles and various other decorations. Several years before I had moved to the mountain, Dan had given me a special bubble light as a gift after I'd told him that those had been my favorite as a child. I found that light and plugged it in every night in the weeks before Christmas, remembering my crazy brother with great fondness each time. There was no tree for Christmas Angel, so I sat him on a table where I could see him… and remember the Christmases that had been special for my kids (the first one after the divorce, when we were so poor we had nothing… but each other… and my grandson's first Christmas, when the tree, hastily erected on Christmas Eve, fell on Nana).

This year as I discovered that the mice had gotten into the boxes of Christmas decorations (destroying nearly everything with fabric, including Christmas Bear, pictured above), I held my breath looking for that Christmas Angel. I didn't know how I would tell my kids if it had to be discarded. I believe my daughter is pretty confident that she will one day take possession of Christmas Angel, and if I had to tell her that Christmas Angel had met his demise at the hands of indiscriminate rodents, I know she would have taken it hard. Me, too.

But there it was, safe and intact. Whew.

It's not just the Christmas memories that it conjures with its magic; it's a reminder that, way back then, we made a decision to let our family be defined by love, not by race or color or origin.

Our little family is bigger today (with more colors!), and love is still our common denominator. Our little Christmas Angel will always remind us of that.

The Things We Hold Dear Part I

When Mom and Dad moved to Southern California in 1954, just before I was born, they did so partly because my maternal grandmother, Lila, lived in Los Angeles. In that year, homes were being built in the biggest housing tract undertaking of its time in a suburb oddly named "Lakewood." (No woods, no lake—just cow pastures and the Santa Ana River.) With lots of open space and a reasonable distance from downtown L.A., it was a great place to raise kids. Mom and Dad bought a brand new three bedroom bungalow—probably about 1,000 square feet—and they settled into the neighborhood just before I was born.


Frequently on the weekends, Grandma would ride in on the train and Dad would pick her up. She and Mom would be in the kitchen for hours on a Sunday, cooking dinner and talking woman talk. For Christmas, the hours were extended. Mom and Grandma would sit at the kitchen table and make cookies and fudge and dates stuffed with walnuts and rolled in sugar. When the treats were ready, they'd be placed on our large dining room table—which was covered by Mom's holiday table cloth.

When I was a child, there were certain items that were pulled from the rafters of the garage—or out of the back of the linen cabinet—every year in the run-up to Christmas Eve. We had our favorite ornaments and decorations, including the little copper angels that hung from a mobile and spun slowly with the heat from candle flames below. And of course, our nativity.

I never thought much about the table cloth… until a few years ago when I was going through some of Mom's things, and there it was. The unfolded cloth lying in my hands became a screen upon which a thousand memories materialized… my dad—before we knew he was dying—bringing in the boxes of Christmas decorations from the garage, then putting up the tree… my sister and I making holiday scenes on our windows with glass wax. (My loves, you would have to be over 50 to know what that is!) And, more vivid than any of the others, Mom and Grandma working tirelessly for days to make food and treats and wrap gifts and (clandestinely) fill stockings so that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be special. Oh, the memories that table cloth has seen…. I put it away carefully, and last Christmas, with friends coming over, I spread it out on my humble little table, fresh and clean from the dryer and still showing a gravy stain from fifty years ago.

This year, when I went to the basement to retrieve my Christmas decorations (packed carefully and stored in a closed cabinet), I discovered mice had gotten into the boxes. In years past, Sug (and Boo, when he was still with me) has taken care of the mouse problem quite efficiently. But the whole of Mt. Baldy was plagued by rodents this past summer, and my little Sugar Plum just could not keep all of them away.

Opening one of the boxes, I carefully extracted Mom's table cloth—and immediately saw holes chewed through the cotton material. Oh no. Oh my god, no. Was it ruined? Would I have to discard it? The cream-colored fabric bordered in snowflakes and pine boughs represented a gossamer connection to some of the few sweet memories of my childhood. Why hadn't I stored it in a more secure place?

Bereft, I carried the cloth still folded to the washer and dropped it in, setting the machine for a long wash on hot. Later, I tossed it in the dryer without looking at it. I wasn't yet prepared emotionally to uncover the extent of the damage.

This morning, I finally had the courage to pull out the table cloth and examine it. Except for those few small holes I saw initially in one corner of the border, the piece is still in good shape. The table cloth will once again grace my holiday table… and, for the days it is displayed, remind me of those brief years when the fabric of my family was still intact.

In My Father's Eyes

My father, who was first a soldier, then a taxi cab driver, then a cop, then a security guard after he and Mom moved to California in 1954, was a stern man. He worked the swing shift because he had gone back to school, law school, and so would attend classes during the day, then leave for work about the time I got home from Kindergarten every day. I feared him, in his imposing uniform, which included the classic Sam Brown belt and side arm, and Mom and Dad never ceased to get a kick out of my intimidation.


As busy as he was with work and school and home improvements on the weekends, Dad made time to visit our local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Dad, at forty, was a youngster compared to most of the men who stopped in there for a beer or two with a fellow comrade-in-arms. How strange and unfair that all those old men would outlive him, as my father would die three years later.

It was around that time, when I was five, that Mom, Dad, my three older siblings and I, one chilly December day, headed out to the VFW hall. Rumor had it Santa Claus would be making an appearance.

I have to confess here that I never believed in Santa, even as a very small child. I was too logical, too analytical, even back then… and too prone to hiding behind Dad's big chair—the invisible child whom no one saw even when I was in plain sight—eavesdropping on my parents' conversations when they thought I'd gone to bed. And yes, even at five, I was the same withdrawn, wary-of-people creature that I am today, so I had nothing but reticence and trepidation about sitting on Santa's lap. Telling my parents I would rather not participate was not an option, unless I wanted to subject myself to their scorn and a lecture about how ridiculous it was to be shy. I kept my mouth shut, pulled my tiny cardigan around my hunched shoulders, and soldiered on.

I can't remember whether they served us dinner at the hall that day, but I know Mom and Dad had a few beers while they chatted with people they knew, and the large group of children in attendance tried to guess what was contained within the many packages stacked beside a Christmas tree in the corner of the room. At some point, I grew concerned as I realized I hadn't seen my parents in awhile. (They had once walked off with the other kids and left me in a strange place, and I still suffered post-traumatic-stress moments because of it.) I tugged on my big brother's shirt and asked him where they were, but he shrugged me off as someone made the big announcement: "I hear jingle bells!"

A man in a Santa suit entered the room with a few requisite ho ho ho's and proceeded to take a seat near the stack of presents by the Christmas tree. My sibs grabbed me and dragged me up to stand in line with them, and I stood there watching this man talk to each kid in turn, eventually handing him or her a wrapped present. Even the promise of a surprise gift couldn't entice me; I had no desire to sit on the lap of a stranger. I couldn't even communicate well with the people who were familiar to me.

When it was my turn, I trudged forward, and the man's hands lifted me to sit on his thigh, one arm stretching around my back to hold me snugly. He asked me what Santa could bring me for Christmas. I didn't answer. I couldn't answer. There was no correct, appropriate answer. If I said a doll or a tea set, I would have been lying, something I'd learned from my strict Catholic upbringing was a terrible sin. I couldn't tell him what I really wanted—a Tonka toy truck—as Mom and Dad had already told me that girls cannot ask Santa for a "boy's" gift. So I just sat helplessly staring down at the floor, wishing the ordeal could be over with.

The man asked me a second time what I wanted from Santa. This time his voice was less affected, more gentle. And somewhat familiar. I found the courage to look up at his face. Thinking back on it now, I can still see his eyes through the fluffs of cotton batting glued over his eyebrows and onto his sideburns. They are the same eyes that look back at me every day when I look into the mirror… my father's eyes.

I want to believe that something changed for him when he looked into the sad face of his little daughter, her eyes beseeching him to simply let her be the person she was meant to be.

I know that something changed for me. My father, this strict, uncompromising man who enforced God's laws as if he were the good Lord's cop incarnate, was capable of playing Santa, of bouncing children on his knee and asking them to share their dreams.

Oh, to have that moment back, to look into his eyes again, and this time, say exactly what I should have said.

Moments when you know you can die happy

My kid, chatting casually with one of her poet-heroes, Billy Collins
Last night I left my mountain and drove an hour and fifteen minutes to my daughter's place in Lake Arrowhead. The occasion was a poetry reading she had arranged at a local coffee shop for her peers in the Master of Fine Arts program at Cal State University in San Bernardino. Whenn I arrived at the pre-reading snack-fest, her house was filled with professorial and college student types (and husbands and cats and kids).


I can't begin to express how happy this makes me.

We never do anything in a conventional way in my family. As hard as I tried to impress upon my children the importance of going straight to college, each one chose his or her own way, and all were working immediately after graduating high school. Shali, too, and then she was married and a mom and divorced and married again and a mom again. Somewhere in there she found time to work and go to school. While she was at Pitzer, the word got around to her professors that she was a poet—a really fine poet in her own right, not just because her mom says so (though you should believe me if I do; I have a fancy degree, too—just not as fancy as hers). Her teachers encouraged her to apply to an MFA program back then. Again, she went her own way, choosing something more practical. She headed to Claremont Graduate University for a teaching credential and master's degree, and she's been teaching school for some years now. This year it's first grade.

But now at night she dons her Super-Woman attire and heads down the mountain to Cal State, where she is studying with well known and respected writers and poets. Yay! Finally! I've been thrilled ever since she was accepted into the program… because I'm her mom, of course, but also because, through all these years, I've just wanted people to hear her, to be exposed to her amazing work. It is a gift that came out of nowhere. It didn't come from me. It's as if I said to her one day when she was a teen, 'Wow, isn't turquoise jewelry amazing?' and a dozen years later she came to me with an intricately crafted necklace and said, 'Oh hey, Mom, I made this,' and it was perfect.

Last night's event was fun and marked by sincere camaraderie among the students reading. And it was attended by Jim Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River. If you've heard me speak of him, you've heard me say that he sets the bar for memoir writing. He is achingly honest in the stark depictions of his life, and his nonfiction is more compelling than any I know.  After the readings, he came over to me.
"Your daughter has real talent," he said.
"Thank you," I replied, trying not to sound like the sappy, proud mom that I am.
"She was my favorite tonight," he said quietly.

That was the moment.

If my kids are all safe, happy and well provided for, I will die happy. If they are recognized for the incredibly unique people they are, well, that might just cause me to dance my way into heaven.

Here it comes

November 18, 2011, taken on my way home from work
With the time change, comes the darkness. No, not the deepening gloom of winter. I refer to the deepening gloom that envelops my soul as the days shorten and I lose time to hike and time at the keyboard. (Because the cabin is so cold in winter, I can only sit here for short periods. After ten or fifteen minutes, my hands are so cold they become too stiff to type.) Thus, as we inch toward the solstice, I find myself unable to do two of those activities which keep me (relatively) sane. Oof.


I'm hoping things will be a bit different this year. A few months back, I bought a custom-made, solid oak drafting table and set it up (with the help of The Grandson) about ten feet away from the furnace. Last weekend, when we had snow, I put it to the test—working on the dog book for some time, writing out page after page in longhand, which I don't mind doing. My writer-friend Lola DeMaci tells me that this is the better method, anyway. I'm a fast typist; I'll do the transcribing when I finish the section (which, by the way, is the final section of the book).

That still doesn't solve my problem of having to curtail long walks in the forest. By the time I get home, it's 4:00 or past, and it's dark here now by 4:30, so unless I walk all the way 'round with a flashlight, I won't be able to walk The Loop except on weekends… which means I might just pack back on that six pounds I shed this summer.

See? It's depressing. To say nothing of Christmas coming on and no one to share it with. Well, except my own little Sugar Plum.

OK, I promise my next post will be a bit more uplifting. We're only 24 days from the solstice… and then the light will slowly return….




Snowstorm

I waited all day for the rain to turn to snow. I love walking in snowstorms… because the activity is more than faintly reminiscent of our journey through life.


I can see, when there is snow on the ground, the tracks of others who have come before me (even though I might have felt very much alone), and it reminds me that we all have our own individual path; we leave our own unique mark as we go.

Sometimes along the way I make mistakes, errors in judgment, as I did today when I stopped to brush the snow from my jacket. I really didn't need to; the waterproof shell was doing its job, but I was concerned about getting damp. In my over-reaction, I hadn't realized how slushy the snow was, and when I'd finished brushing it away, I discovered my gloves were wet—bad news when it's 30 degrees outside. There was nothing to do but keep walking, keep putting one foot in front of the other, telling myself, 'Well, you're going to have cold hands from here on out, the consequences of not thinking things through.'

While I am not always mindful of it, my very efficient Transitions lenses do darken up a bit, even in a snowstorm, if it's daylight. Realizing this, as I take them off to wipe the snow away, I become aware once again that I often perceive the world as being a bit darker than it truly is.

Walking in 30 degree weather in driving snow is not much different, actually, than a summer-time walk around the loop if one is privileged to be able to afford the proper gear. Today as I stopped near the falls to consider this—in my heavy Lands End squall jacket, waterproof pants and sturdy snow boots, I felt grateful. I have not always been this well suited up for life's challenges. In the past, I knew what it was to be cold and hungry and to be powerless to change those circumstances. Sometimes now I forget what that felt like, and how far I've come. Remembering, even when it is painful, is crucial to keeping an attitude of gratitude.

Finally, part of the appeal of walking in a storm is the promise of what I will return to upon arriving home. At the end of this day that is a life, I hope there will be warm fires and my loved ones to greet me. Today, it will be a hot cup of tea, my little cat Sugar Plum dozing by the fire, and the soft music I left playing as I went out into the world.