There is something about a quiet evening that soothes my soul. Day is done, the clock is winding down, it’s time for friends. The warming weather helps a lot; so does lingering daylight.

If you really let yourself go, you might just believe that for a moment, all is right with the world.

Of course, it isn’t, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow. Tonight let’s just go look at the colors in the sky, listen to the osprey on her nest, feel the residual warmth of the day, and just breathe. Let it all go.

Some things got done today but there’s still more to do tomorrow. But tonight, let’s just be with each other, however many that is. We’ll sit on the porch, toast our good fortune, talk, laugh, or weep a little remembering the ones no longer here. I’ll put my arm around you for a small measure of comfort.

Maybe we’ll make a fire. Maybe we’ll pour another glass of wine. Maybe we’ll nibble or nosh or listen to some music. Or maybe we’ll just sit quietly on the porch swing and watch the evening fall like a feather. OK; well, maybe we’re still working on the quiet part.

A pair of house wrens have made a nest in the hanging basket that presides over the porch. It was a lovely Christmas basket back in December, but now it’s well past its prime. But evidently the wrens found it nest-worthy—there are three tiny blue eggs hidden among the boughs—so the basket will remain where it is until the fledging are hatched and gone. That should only take a few weeks; in the meantime, it makes a good human story and a safe and secure avian home.

I am certainly not one you would call from a night owl, but I do enjoy a pleasant gloaming. That’s what my Scottish ancestors called the time in between day and night. It’s neither exactly twilight nor dusk, although both those names come close. Gloaming is subtly different because the farther north one goes, the longer the interim between daylight and darkness—at least during the summer months. (In winter, there just isn’t time for any roamin’ in the gloamin’ because as soon as the sun dips below the horizon—probably around four o’clock in the afternoon—you want to be indoors and in front of the fire or, even better, under the covers!)

But now, here in this pleasant clime, evenings are like a promise kept. They are to be savored. Put your work aside for a moment, put away your phone, find a comfortable place and a good friend and watch what happens when day is finally done and the busy world is hushed. You’ll be surprised about how the light lingers and glows, about how softly falls the night. And if you’re really lucky, maybe a friend will stroll by and stop for a quick chat; maybe you’ll smell the heat rising up from the earth or hear the chorus of peepers out by the pond; maybe you’ll take your wife’s hand and feel its warmth against your skin.

And if you’re really, really lucky, you’ll whisper to her, “Happy birthday, Honey!”

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

 

 

 

 

March and all of its madness has come and is now almost gone; thankfully, we’re about to turn a new page on the calendar. It’s strange to think that not all that long ago we were suffering through snow squalls and sliding on icy sidewalks and looking out our rain-splattered windows—the final straws in this, the winter of our discontent. But now the tulip magnolia across the street is in full bloom, the forsythia, too, and I’m under some wifely pressure to go mow the lawn.

To be honest, I can’t remember if March arrived lion-like, but I will say it seems to be departing on cue in relatively lamb-worthy fashion. So, I wasn’t all that surprised when in my dream last night, I walked into a bar and sat down next to a lion and a lamb who were drinking martinis. I nodded a polite hello, then asked the bartender for one of the same. The lion and the lamb were deep in conversation about the weather which is usually a pretty safe topic of conversation in these parts. I was content to eavesdrop.

“So how would you rate your performance this month?” the lamb asked.

“I’d be lyin’ if I pretended I didn’t do a dandy job bringing it in,” said the king of the jungle.

“Very funny,” said Lamb.

“Sorry,” said the lion. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself.” He lapped up a sip with his tongue. “How ‘bout you? Taking us out like good little lambs?”

Lamb blushed. He seemed like a pretty modest fellow. “Looks like we’re on schedule for a smooth landing. I did get both my shots this month so that’s another good thing.”

“Me, too!” said the lion. “Cheers to us!” They clinked glasses. “I hear this vaccination thing is going pretty well now. Maybe we’ll get to herd immunity pretty soon, maybe by summer. I love a herd with good immunity.” The lion licked his lips, then leaned over and looked at me. “What about you, friend? Vaxed yet?”

I held up two fingers. “Got my second one two weeks ago. I’m good to go.”

“Well then, cheers to you, too!” And they both raised their glasses in my direction. They seemed pretty amiable fellows, these two.

“Tell me something,” I said. “How did you guys get started in the weather business?”

The lion and the lamb glanced at each other and I thought maybe I saw the lamb raise a wooly eyebrow, like ‘oh boy; here we go again.’

“Goes way back,” said Lion. “You know about astrology, right? Don’t you humans like to ask each other about your signs?”

I shrugged. “I never get very far with that line.”

“Tell me about it. Anyway, this month—March—sits astride two signs: Leo and Aries. The lion and the lamb. It was that easy. We were naturals so we got the gig.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Aries is in March, but not Leo. That’s later, like in July or August.”

The lion’s yellow eyes narrowed. “You sure about that, friend?” I thought I detected a note of menace in the way he looked at me. Maybe this place wasn’t such a peaceable kingdom after all. The lamb was quietly studying the olives in his glass. He glanced in my direction and I thought I heard him whisper, “Don’t get him started.”

It was time to go. I drained my glass and stood up. “Well, guess I’ll be going. Time for dinner soon. We’re going to grill some lam…” I stopped.

“Some what?” asked the lamb. “Not sure I heard you.” Now there was menace in his voice, too. The lion growled and pushed away from the bar. His mane seemed to inflate; he looked larger than life. I started to back away from him but stumbled over an alligator who was just crawling into the bar.

That’s when I woke up with a start. My wife was next to me, calmly reading her book. She looked at me. “Are you alright?”

My pulse was racing. “Just a crazy dream. I was having a drink with a lion and a lamb.”

She shrugged. “Must be March. Go back to sleep, dear. Oh, by the way; I think tomorrow we should eat those lamb chops that have been in the freezer all winter. The weather’s supposed to be nice. Maybe you could grill them outside? There’s mint coming up in the garden; I’ll make a sauce. Where are you going?”

“I need a drink of water. I’ll be right back.”

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

A few years ago, I wrote a series of Musings about “thin places”—points of spiritual intersection where the twin kingdoms of heaven and earth don’t quite collide but almost touch. Portals, perhaps; gateways to another dimension. I wrote about four such places I’ve visited—Mount Kilimanjaro, The Piazza Navona in Rome, the Taos Pueblo, and Iona, a small islet off the coast of Scotland. Now, for some reason I can’t quite explain, I’ve been thinking about a fifth thin place: a small adobe chapel situated on the High Road that winds through the backcountry hills between Santa Fe and Taos called El Santuario de Chimayó.

In my wandering years, I found Chimayo quite by accident. Or so I thought at the time. Now, I believe Chimayo found me which seems to be the way of thin places: they find you when you need them. The chapel is old: it was built in 1816 and over the years, it has become a place of religious pilgrimage, earning it a reputation as the Lourdes of America. Over 300,000 people a year visit Chimayo making it the most visited shrine in America. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Simple as it may be, many people believe Chimayo is a place of great power and healing. Just off the left side of the rude alter, a small door leads to a simple room with a dirt floor. In the middle of the room, pilgrims who believe the ground under the chapel is holy and can cure physical and spiritual ills have scooped out a hole in the floor. A small spoon lies next to the hole so anyone can scrape away a small measure of Chimayo’s dirt. Leaving the room by another door, one passes through a dim hallway whose walls are covered with braces and crutches, a legacy of devotion left behind by those who have found healing at Chimayo.

I’ve come to the conclusion that thin places are both old as time and new as now. That’s part of their beauty but not all of it. Thin places may be hidden or right in front of our noses. Like stars in daylight, they are always present—we just can’t see them. They’re both mysterious and wonderful, sacred and profane, ephemeral and everlasting. I’ve often encountered thin places in areas surrounded by water, but, as at Chimayo, I’ve experienced them in sere places, too. They are often announced by a subtle quality of light that seems to almost radiate or glow. I’ve tried to photograph thin places but it’s difficult; I’ve found that in the time it takes to reach for my camera, the aura of the thin place has already vanished. Maybe it’s just that thin places are only visible to the human heart and not to a mechanical lens.

I don’t understand what makes a space “thin” but I believe Chimayo to be such a place. Behind the chapel, there is a small xeriscaped garden bordered by a chain-link fence. Over the years, visitors have crafted simple crosses out of dry grass and inserted them into the fence creating a shimmering sea of faithfulness that speaks to the power of the place. I wonder if the humble little cross I placed in the fence on my first visit in 1995 is still there.

Outside the sanctuary, in the bright New Mexican sunlight, a few small shops surround a dusty plaza. Some sell wreaths made of bright red chilis, others offer the traditional weavings of the Ortega and Trujillo families. I’m not one much given to religious iconography, but in the small gift shop next to the chapel, I bought a small cross salvaged from the tin roof of the sanctuary when it had to be replaced decades ago. Now it watches over my wife’s side of our bed.

It has been many years since I last visited Chimayo. I hope it is still as I remember it. For now, I am content to live here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I have always felt I didn’t find this place, that it found me. I like to think that the Eastern Shore may well be a thin place—or very close to one—so I try to always keep my eyes and heart open. Whether it’s something as wondrous as the annual arrival of ospreys or as simple as sitting on the porch surrounded by friends, I have felt heaven and earth touch right here.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

When your surname is like mine—it literally means “Patrick’s church”—people tend to assume you’re Irish. To be charitable, they’re probably half right. It’s likely that a generation or two of my ancestors did pass through Ulster on their way to America from Scotland, part of a subset of Scots who sought a new start in a new world…but that was a long time ago.

Unless you’re a direct descendant of Chingachgook, we all came here from somewhere else. Some of us arrived voluntarily, some of us were indentured, and some of us were bound in chains. Like it or not, immigration, whether chosen or forced, is the underlying theme of the American story, and like all good stories, it is still being revised and rewritten today. Nothing is ever truly finished.

Nevertheless, I still think about my own immigration story a lot. Not so much about the ancestor who arrived here in 1763, but about what he left behind. What finally drove him to sail away from everything he knew, the people and place of his birth? Was he headed to a new place or running away from a haunted old place? The distinction was probably important at the time, but it doesn’t much matter now. For better or for worse, we’re here to stay.

These days, my own little family’s migrations are smaller, not nearly so bold. I moved away from my hometown and eventually came to rest in a new place that I love not all that far away. My children have travelled farther: one to Colorado, the other to California. They made new starts in the same country, hardly the stuff of legend, but important nonetheless. Migrations are as much about establishing identity and independence as they are about flight or survival or capture. Motive matters.

In the current political climate, immigration has became a hot-button topic. While I understand the reasons for that, I rue the debate because it obscures something profoundly important in the human condition. We all want a better life. We all want to be safe and secure, to be able to provide for our loved ones, and to realize our dreams. But in today’s world, immigration implies more about threat, privation, and competition for what are perceived to be limited resources. I suppose those narrative themes have always been a part of the immigration story, but now they seem to be driving it over a cliff onto the scree below. What once made us who we are and bound us together, now threatens to drive us apart.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I know it’s something of a faux holiday here—in Ireland it’s hardly celebrated at all—but it’s noteworthy nevertheless. For a few hours, some of us will don something green and celebrate the old cuttings that have grown new shoots in this fertile soil. There are similar celebratory days for other cultures: Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah, Eid, Diwali and more: each a savory dish in America’s multicultural feast. So come in, sit down, and make yourself at home. There’s plenty for all.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

Life is transient; life is fragile. I often wonder what is on the other side. Maybe someday I’ll know. Or maybe I won’t.

This past year, death has been too much with us. So much loss. While Covid-19 has claimed its unfair share of victims, that terrible viral infection hasn’t been the only culprit. We, the living, bear the burden of remembering our loved ones. The manner of their death is important, but so is their legacy—how they live on through us.

I’ve been thinking about this because in the last few months, we’ve lost several friends and family members: my sister, the father of a dear friend, two more family members, the husband and brother of another friend, and just last week, my wife’s brother. Only one was taken by Covid, but all are gone nonetheless. And suddenly, too. Death arrived unbidden on our doorstep, came in and made itself brazenly unwelcome in our home, leaving nearly overwhelming grief in its dark wake.

I don’t believe life ends in oblivion; it certainly doesn’t end like that for those of us left behind. Back in 1968, Blood, Sweat & Tears covered a Laura Nyro song that included this lyric: “I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Maybe so, but in my mind, there is a midway point between the extremes—a place of crossing over, some sort of bridge spanning the void that lies between the consciousness of this world and the great unknown on the other side.

In the film “Field of Dreams,” Terrence Mann, the JD Salinger-like character portrayed by James Earl Jones, is invited by the ghostly baseball teams playing in an Iowa cornfield to come with them to the mysterious place beyond the outfield. At first, he is both reluctant and intrigued, but eventually, with a little coaxing from Shoeless Joe Jackson, he walks out across the green grass of life toward the limit of Ray Kinsella’s field. Tentatively, he reaches into the tall corn that borders the diamond, only to draw back his hand in wonder. He takes a deep breath, then steps in and gives one last wistful look back before setting off down the rows, fading away as he goes, leaving behind only the music of the stalks rustling in the wind. I’ve always liked that scene; it may be Hollywood’s overly romantic answer to the imponderable question of death but it’s comforting nonetheless.

The last lines of that aforementioned Laura Nyro song go like this: “And when I die, and when I’m dead, dead and gone, there’ll be one child born and the world will carry on. Carry on.” In the months to come, there is likely still more grief to come but there’s also hope. I find a fair measure of comfort in the belief that our pain, intense as it may be in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death, will ease over time and life will return to something akin to normal. It is our lot to remember all those who have crossed over the bridge and to carry on.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

 

The geese had been gathering for several days: huge flocks assembling, sheltering together in the fields, gossiping, gleaning, making preparations for their long journey back to the Canadian tundra. Suddenly, sensing the celestial clockwork of the season, they lifted off early in the evening of the full Snow Moon (February 27 this year), using its bright light as a beacon to guide them on their northbound way.

Meanwhile, to the south, the flyways are full of ospreys making their way back to their summer nests on our rivers and Bay. My bet is that within the next few days, we’ll have had the first annual sighting of these soaring beauties, keening on high as they fish for dinner.

And then there are the tiny luminescent hummingbirds. They, too, are making their way north, having left their winter feeding grounds in Central America to wend their way through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas before arriving in mid-April at the feeders in our gardens and backyards.

Oh; and let’s not forget one more airborne journey: monarch butterflies—the only migrating species of butterfly—are flitting north, more than half a million of them returning to the places where they were born, repopulating as they go. (The lifespan of a monarch butterfly is only a few weeks so it takes several generations to complete the complete migratory cycle.) This year, the East Coast population of monarchs began their northward migration from Mexico on February 24 and by summer, God willing, their lovely stained-glass wings will again be folding and unfolding here.

Spring is literally in the air. Depending on your personal perspectives and preferences, all this vernal avian movement is either a divine mystery or just another explicable, rational fact. Take your pick. Either way, it’s a fascinating display of the wonders of the natural world—the one that surrounds us, the one we so desperately need to care for.

And therein lies the problem. You see, there’s something else in the air, something colorless, tasteless, and odorless; something invisible, silent, and, sad to say, dangerous. It’s carbon dioxide (CO2), a naturally formed trace gas consisting of a single carbon atom covalently bonded to two oxygen atoms. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is about .04%, or 412 parts per million. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s a higher level of atmospheric carbon dioxide than at any other time in the past 300 million years of our planet’s history, and it’s accelerating at an alarming rate.

Unless you are a true non-believer, paleoclimatology is not for the faint of heart; it’s a sobering science that seeks to explain life on Earth as a function of climate. I don’t pretend to understand all its scientific nuance, but this much I do understand: as the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases, so does Earth’s temperature. And because we live on such a capricious planet, even a small increase in temperature can have profound environmental consequences. Ice will melt, seas will rise, and weather phenomena will become evermore virulent.

In the pre-industrial age, the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was about half of what it is today. While there are many natural sources of carbon dioxide—volcanoes, geysers, even groundwater—there are many more human-derived sources, primarily fossil fuel emissions and deforestation, the two leading causes of global warming and ocean acidification. The evidence of cataclysmic change is already before our eyes and it’s not a pretty sight. Earth’s warning lights are flashing bright red.

All this may seem a long way from where I began, but it’s not. The great avian migrations that have signaled the coming of spring for millennia may seem like a timeless component of the rhythm of life on earth, but the patterns and numbers of these migrations are changing rapidly. Loss of habitat, competition for resources, pesticide use, and rising temperatures are having a major impact on these wondrous events, perhaps forever changing our previously simplistic notion that, once again, spring is in the air.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

 

 

 

I think it’s safe to say that most of us are ready to move on from winter. This last round of snow and ice has left me walking gingerly along the path toward spring, muttering to myself about that nasty polar vortex that descended on us from our supposed friends up above the arctic circle. “Bah humbug,” I recently told one of my winter-loving pals who can’t get enough of the white stuff. “Show me some green!”

But between you and me, the truth is, winter’s chill showcases our world in crisp, clear light. Summer has its subtleties of light and shadow but winter tells it like it is. It’s the most mathematical of seasons: we measure snowfall in inches; we count degrees on the thermometer; we plow long, straight lines along our roadways to keep us in our proper lanes. In summer, we may choose to wander through leafy glades, but come winter, we go from point A to point B as fast as we dare. Pythagoras would be proud!

Wait a minute…who? Pythagoras, that’s who, the ancient Greek philosopher whose school of thought influenced the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. High schoolers know him best for his eponymous theorem that teaches us that a2 + b2 = c2 but that bit of mathematical wizardry is almost an afterthought in his legacy. Before he turned to triangles, Pythagoras postulated the lovely notion of musica universalis—the doctrine that the planets move in accordance with mathematical equations that produce an inaudible symphony known as the music of the spheres. And if that’s not impressive enough, Pythagoras is also credited with introducing mankind to metempsychosis—the transmigration of souls—the belief that holds that all souls are immortal and when one body dies, its soul enters into a new body. It should also be noted here that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, a lifestyle that might explain many of his revolutionary ideas. Come to think of it, that’s not unlike my own vegetarian friend, Eggman.

Anyway, all this was certainly not on my mind as I drove down a little-used county road a few weeks ago and came upon a starkly beautiful winter scene—a tidy farm, all angles and shapes and colors that seemed to float above one of its snow-clad field. It seemed the very manifestation of winter geometry: pin-neat, measurable, defined—the kind of solvable equation that would have captured old Pythagoras’ estimable attention. In summer, the farmhouse and its outbuildings might well have been obscured by tall stalks of corn, but on that cold, clear day, that farm’s plentiful potential was revealed in all its latent glory. That’s winter’s way: it distills an object or a scene down to its base essence. Nothing is hidden, everything’s in plain sight. What you see in winter is what you get.

A few weeks from now, all this snow and ice will be gone and that barren field will be plowed, seeded, and reset to life. That is as it should be, but for now, here on winter’s cusp, I’m reminded that even in paucity, there’s beauty and bounty…if only we are willing to see it.

I bet Pythagoras would agree.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

On May 23, 1618, three Catholic officials were tossed out of a top-floor window in Hradčany Castle by an angry mob of Bohemian Protestant activists. Such defenestrations—the act of throwing someone out of a window—had actually happened twice before, but this particular incident became the catalyst for the Thirty Years War, Europe’s bloodiest conflict. All matter of plunder and pillage ensued: nobles and common citizens were tortured and executed, their heads impaled on iron stakes and hung from a bridge near Prague’s central square. By the time thirty years of bloodshed finally ceased, more than 8 million people lay dead, some from wounds suffered in battle, but millions more from famine and disease.

At the risk of diving into the shallow waters of partisan politics and breaking my own neck, I’ve decided to devote this Musing to the defenestration of reason that recently took place in Washington. Another impeachment trial has now concluded and while no one was tossed out of a Capitol window, an angry mob and the individual who incited it literally got away with murder. When fifteen Republican Senators—supposedly impartial jurors in this trial—decided to absent themselves from their Constitutional responsibilities and another handful of GOP Senators deemed it appropriate to consult with defense counsel, the outcome of this impeachment trial became a forgone conclusion. When all was said and done, the defendant in the case was acquitted for an unprecedented second time and a new series of events of potentially disastrous consequences was likely set in motion as a result of lickspittle Senatorial cowardice. As someone once tweeted before that social media plug was pulled, “Sad!”

It is unfathomable to me that so many of us simply refuse to accept reason. Facts, science, truth, the results of a free and fair election—all denied and tossed out the window. Apparently, there is another compelling reality, some parallel universe, of which I’m not aware. In that realm, the rule of law is supplanted by hypocrisy and hate, and the blind eyes of the elders and their devoted mob refuse to see the bodies that are falling from the sky. Remember that in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, many more innocent people died of hunger and disease—the social and economic pandemics of their time—than fell in battle. Today, we’ll be counting the dead differently. These new casualties have fallen to a global pandemic, to racial injustice, to a devastated economy, and even to the deadly onslaught of climate change. And those among us who have chosen to defenestrate reason don’t give a fig.

Strangely enough, even though the three officials who were defenestrated in Prague in 1618 fell more than seventy feet, they all survived. The Catholics who were present said the three were saved by angels; the Protestants who witnessed the same event said the three all landed in a steaming dung heap. Either way, they were lucky to survive, but the eight million folk who didn’t survive the defenestration’s aftermath weren’t so fortunate. They paid the price for the folly of an angry mob.

I fear we’re seeing history repeat itself. Again.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

 

 

I have a couple of friends who are gung-ho on snow but I have an ambivalent relationship with the white stuff. Sure, it’s pretty and yes, it does create a lovely hush over all the world. Kids, of course, still pray for a snow day to release them from the tedium of school and I even confess that when I was teaching for a living, I did, too. I admit that snow can be fun: dogs love to romp in it, pandas can’t resist a good downhill slide on it, snowmen couldn’t exist without it, and what skier isn’t thrilled to make new tracks in fresh powder? Snow even has a rhapsodic quality: who can forget Julie Andrews singing about all those snowflakes that stayed on her nose and eyelashes and all those silver white winters melting into spring—these were a few of her favorite things and I don’t disagree.

But there’s another side—a darker side—to snow. The shoveling of it, the skidding on it, the muck and mess of it. A day or two into a big snow storm and the charm of all that whiteness begins to wear on me. By the third day, I get restless. I go out to the golf course to take a walk and that shimmering white expanse taunts me: no golf for you for at least another week or two. You thought winter was over? Sorry, sucker. That groundhog knew what he was talking about.

Some of us never lose our childish delight in snow. I admire those types but I’m not one of them. I’m fine on the first day of a good snowfall but soon enough, I begin to itch and twitch, the first symptoms of cabin fever. A good book can divert me for an hour or two but there’s a limit to page-turning. I turn on the television and maybe I get lucky and find a golf tournament that transports me to Hawaii or California or Arizona or Florida—anywhere where snow is the last thing on anybody’s mind. But one peek out the window and I’m thrown back into that pile of snow in front of the house, up to my neck in endless winter, dubious of the promise of spring.

Don’t get me wrong. I still can get vicarious pleasure out of watching the grandkids bundle up and head out to the sledding hill, probably all the more because I don’t have to be the one to take them out in the cold. I’ve earned the right to stay home in front of the fire and enjoy the welcome quiet of a suddenly empty house. But by the time the kids return, cherry-cheeked, runny-nosed, and missing a mitten, it will be my job to drop a chocolate bomb in a cup of warm milk and hear all about their eskimo adventures.

In his poem “The Snowman,” Wallace Stevens reminds us of a simple truth: “One must have a mind of winter.” Maybe I do, but only up to a point. Whereas others may dream of yet another foot or two of the white stuff, about this time of year, I begin to look for signs of spring: the first little green shoots that poke their heads up through the snow in my neighbor’s yard, all those geese gleaning the fields in anticipation of their long flight north, the afternoon light that stretches just a little longer each day.

Snow is winter’s fine handwriting. While I appreciate its message, I find myself waiting for a postcard from my old friend spring. But I’ve learned that until it arrives, you just never know so I’ll keep my snow shovel handy…just in case.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Last week, we got a gilding of snow, just enough to leave a skim coat of white on the ground that served to mark my passage to the shed in the backyard. But more on that later…

Buildings have footprints. So does Bigfoot. Even carbon has a footprint these days. Robinson Crusoe found Friday by following his footprints in the sand.  Footprints are but the ephemeral impressions left on a soft surface like sand or snow, or on a concept like time or the environment. Unlike fingerprints which can serve to identify individuality, footprints are generally anonymous. I find a fingerprint and with a microscope and a little forensic training, I can tell you whose hand has been in the cookie jar; I see a footprint and I wonder who has passed this way before. Fingerprints can lead us to certainty while footprints retain an air of mystery, unless, of course, you’re one of those canny, old-time trackers on the trail of an outlaw or a wounded buffalo in a John Ford western.

Footprints are all around us. If you think about it, even time leaves a footprint: the rings that count the seasons of a tree, the carbon-dating of an artifact, the wrinkles that come with our own advancing years. These are the footprints of our lives, the ones that help us remember all that we’ve done and all that we’ve left undone. And if, God forbid, we should ever lose our way in this world, it’s the footprints of our lives that can help us retrace our steps and find our way back home.

I’m thinking about footprints today because this Musing is my 260th consecutive weekly offering. If you do the math, you’ll see that 260 weeks adds up to five years. So, with your permission, I’m bending my arm to pat myself on my back for five years of writing about the world in which I live, the place I’ve come to call home, the people that I love. Like my footprints in last week’s dusting of snow, these Musings mark my way through the landscape of my life and while I probably won’t get lost going to the shed out back, my footprints will always lead me back to my own doorstep. 

Five years in, there are some people I want to thank: Dave Wheelan, publisher of The Spy newspapers, who gambled on me five years ago when I first posited that a flock of northbound geese were much better prognosticators of spring than a grumpy old groundhog in his burrow up on Gobblers Knob; Jim Dissette, who helped me collect over a hundred of these Musings and turned them into two lovely little books; my friends who simply smiled when I wrote about their exploits on the golf course or about their businesses in town; to readers who have encouraged me with kind comments in print or in the checkout line at the grocery store; and, of course, to the wee wife who is always the first reader of my early drafts and the person whose footprints I would follow anywhere. My muse.

Musings are my happy disciplines. One of the questions I’m asked most often is “How do you come up with something to write about week-after-week?” It’s a fair question, one that I’m not sure I can truthfully answer. Maybe someday the well will run dry, but so far, these footprints of my mind not only follow me on my own journey, but they also push me forward along the path to wherever it is I’m going.

Today’s forecast is calling for snow, maybe even a lot of it. Think I’ll go take a walk… 

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com