#126: Entering the Quiet Time and Recipe for Soup
Entering the Quiet Time and a Recipe for White Bean Soup with Sausage.
Nearly Winter
We’re close to winter. The quiet time. The cold time when months of damp air and temps in the 30s and 40s set off GP’s arthritis. I know when it happens as she gives a specific yelp followed by a limp. In addition to her daily CBD dose, I add the arthritis medication her vet has given just for times like this.
Creaky bones.
White hair.
Oh, sweet girl.
We’re both getting older.
After the strictest part of the COVID shutdown was over and I felt brave enough to venture out masked to the general store, I learn there are supply chain issues with matches. I buy what is available and remember to be grateful that there are matches of any sort and I don’t have to rub two flints together for a spark. Even today, blue tip matches, the ones that light more easily than green tip ones, are still not available. I have enough logs inside to get me through the night and bringing more in goes on tomorrow’s chore list.
Both front and back fences are more than wobbling after last month’s gales and they will need new post holes dug and set. I bring the wind chimes inside. Now it’s just the fire, the soundtrack for nearly 45 years of my winter world. I recognize a version of the tune in an audio clip in Kelton Wright’s newsletter. She often writes of the 600 square foot cabin she shared with her husband before moving to a mountain top in Colorado.
My cabin was 325 square feet for four of us. Hers looks large by comparison. Familiar too is the utilize every available space for storage decorating style. I know well the constant selective pruning required when something old must make room for something new.
Old School Datebook for a New Year
In 2023, I am forgoing using an online calendar and returning to a written datebook. It’s how I kept track of my life for many years and I can do it again, plus Google will have less things to know about me. I buy one at the local bookstore that’s about the size of my phone. Along with a pencil, it fits into my purse easily.
Along the lines of social media and tech companies, this piece from Ted Gioia today is worth a read.
What I’m Reading
I have morning and evening reads. For me, morning reads are inspirational, setting a tone for the day, and giving me things to think on and, on occasion, to write. If I’m lucky to meet up with my muse later on a walk or ride, I try and capture the flow of ideas and words when I return. If not, there are always chores to do.
On a recent day trip I stop at a yard sale and see a copy of Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. In my 30s or 40s I remembering buying this book at another yard sale but that copy has long since been passed on to another or donated to the thrift store. I pay $1. It will take the place of the morning read I just finished and I wonder if I will like it as much this time.
Evening reads take me out of my day and ready me for sleep. I just finished The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams and have now begun Dirt by Bill Buford. Different centuries; one historical fiction, the other personal narrative. Maybe I’ll find a thread of connection between the two.