Tagged: wonderfulworld

20
Jan
2006

WHITE PETALS AND SNOW SNAKES

Lo. sifted through the winds that blow, Down comes the soft and silent snow, White petals from the flowers that grow In the cold atmosphere.* It’s snowing and blowing like crazy. All day long the flags have been overworked, stretched out to their snapping points, straining in the stiff breeze, ends fraying. This snow is so different from the last stuff we had. Then it was fat and wet and lazy and perfect for packing. This is more like diamond dust. It’s dry and granular and it blows up against everything in great drifts and piles and ridges of frozen...

04
Jan
2006

WINTER WALKABOUT

It’s snowing in Hunneberga, but not in Hammarlunda or Holmby, nor at home. My boots are slightly too big. My feet slide a little bit inside as I walk, forward and back. By the end of my half hour roundabout they will have had a thorough falling-out with my socks who will have slouched and slid down and made annoying little ridges under the arch of each foot. My big boots make a crumping noise on the crushed crystals of the frozen snow. It’s dark but for the puddled glow of the streetlights, strung like beads along each path and...

27
Dec
2005

IF YOU GET MY DRIFT

It’s the epitome of a winter wonderland here. We’ve had snow, fat and flurrious, white and wondrous, softly falling, whipping sideways, whiteout sifting, all day. Sometime around midday, I heard the thunk and swoop of the shovel; Anders was out futilely clearing the driveway as the flakes floated down around him softly and quickly re-coating everything. The kids bundled up and took off like rockets into the snow. I had been admiring the pristine…and trackless…vistas from the window and was suddenly jolted from my reverie by the knowledge that every soft white surface would shortly be a churned and stomped...

19
Dec
2005

WHAT A BRIGHT TIME, IT’S THE RIGHT TIME

Much as I love my little village, I suspect I’m a city girl at heart. I still miss Chicago with an ache every time I really think about it. It’s not very often that I get into town these days, and even less often when I get in with a decent amount of time to just walk around taking in the sights, taking in the pulse, and shopping. I had an agenda of sorts today, but I had plenty of time to deal with it, and walked around the center of Malmö people-watching and absorbing the city atmosphere, in a...

17
Dec
2005

PART OF THE MIRACLES YOU SEE EVERY HOUR

The winter sun shines so brightly you almost think you need sunglasses when you head out the door, camera in hand, 3 small child satellites revolving around you with crazy orbits. Head into the sun, keep your eyes open. You might think it’s all dead and brown, but you’d be wrong. Tiny pine cones, bright red berries, curlique teasel, fluff-headed winter grasses, a coat of ground frost, the sun in your eyes. The children run before you, laughing in the sunshine. They stop and wait and wonder why you’re taking pictures of that dead plant, those trees against the sky,...

11
Dec
2005

ROCKING AROUND

The surface of the desk is strewn, STREWN I TELL YOU, with the detritus of Christmas: cards, postcards, envelopes, pens, lists, address books, newsletters, photo pages, school photos, a stapler. There is a small stack, slowly growing, of sealed and addressed cards. There are no less than 3 address books. Underneath it all somewhere are the final shopping lists of gifts yet to be bought: a niece, a nephew, my husband, my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, my own. The mailing date for cards overseas is the 16th, I’ve been told, and I still have a package to mail after those final gifts are...

16
Nov
2005

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE

I think I’ve figured out what’s going on. It’s a full moon! But wait! Wasn’t it a full moon yesterday? Come to think of it, it was a full moon THREE DAYS AGO. Are we STUCK?! Well, actually, Martin and I sussed out the moon 3 days ago, and after checking it over very carefully, heads tilted to first one side and then the other, we agreed that it wasn’t quuuuuuuuuuuuuite full yet. It was still a shade squashy on one side. But it was for sure a full moon the night after. The night after that was cloudy, and...

29
Sep
2005

COMPLEMENTARY COLORING

It would probably help in getting comments if I didn’t accidentally set my posts to private, eller hur? *slaps forehead* *** I am such a wimp when it comes to spicy foods. A little wasabi is about all I can manage and most everything else hot just sears the lining off my lips, tongue, mouth and throat, while making other hardier souls laugh their heads off and point fingers at me, while chanting “wimp!” So, I tend not to eat curries or spicy Spanish and Mexican dishes or things with turbo-red killer chilis in them, and most salsa ain’t happening...

04
Sep
2005

WINDING DOWN

It seems as if the sun is setting so much faster these days, but here it is 8:30 at night and there is still a westerly glow. Maybe it’s just that we don’t notice it when the skies are overcast or it’s raining, compared with the clear and crisp weather we’ve been blessed with this week. The trees are a bit droopy, on the verge of being droppy, but they haven’t started shedding yet. Most of the fields have been cleared, and there are only a few dotted with thick wheels of hay still waiting to be collected for winter...

21
Aug
2005

CAN YOU CANOE?

If you sit really still and listen, in addition to not causing the canoe to wobble violently, you’ll hear the water life under and around you. That stretching sound is your muscles, pulling and contracting in ways you’d forgotten. That slapping splash and arpeggio of water drops is the paddle dipping in, pushing and displacing, your body the motor that moves the boat forward. Fronds wave slowly and wetly beneath you, you pass so quickly over them, their elongated strands leafily undulating, wetly waving. An army of dragonflies darts madly about, a zipping sound, capering and dancing above the green...