I apologize in advance for the lack of photos. I was having too much fun to stop and pull out the camera.
I am pretty sure that the reason that New England has so many great writers (I won’t even attempt to name them all) is that winter calls for reflection, sitting by the fire and putting those thoughts down on paper. On days like this when the snow is falling hard and threatening to turn to ice the best thing to do is to hunker down and just be with it and enjoy the chance to slow the pace. The only problem in staying home for me is the wide range of choices of things to keep myself occupied. I can stay busy from dawn to way past dusk without a moment of boredom. In fact, I don’t relate to boredom at all. Boredom is the result of a lack of imagination.
We are in our second snow storm in a week and the possibility of power outages due to ice is real. I am stocked up on candles and batteries and hope that the soup is hot and cooked through before I lose power.
I am doing well. The major side effects of detoxing from the evils of sugar, flour and dairy seems to have worn off. I had a bad, four tissue box cold last week that I think was more a part of the detox process than a virus. Better out than in! However, my office mates were getting tired of the nose blowing, as was I. My nose is still recovering.
On Friday night, my sister, Barb, made her way through Massachusetts traffic from S. Windsor, CT to visit. We had an excellent time. After a dinner of tilapia, asparagus, and wild rice we went to the Red River Theater to see Vision, a movie about the medieval mystic Hildegaard von Bingen. Hildegaard was a woman way ahead of her time and a feminist within a restricted patriarchal church. The movie was very true to her story. She was a mystic, musician, herbalist, and healer and fought hard to protect the nuns living in her cloister.
On Saturday, Barb joined me for a Dharma class on death and dying taught by Kelsang Chokye from the Serlingpa Meditation Center. I am still processing the class. We were invited to contemplate our death daily and to develop our spiritual practice in such a way as to be prepared for the time of death. I think about death quite often, not in a morbid way, but because I have lost many precious people in my life and I am well aware that I am less than twenty years away from the ages my parents were at the time of their deaths.
Chokye gave us each a slip of paper to contemplate during meditation. Mine said “you have two years to live.” As I meditated, I found I was more concerned about the quality of those two years than the quantity. Being productive and of service are very important to me and I would not want to spend my senior years being of little use. Barb’s said she had two weeks to live and the first thing she thought of was that she needed to write down all the account passwords for her husband. Good advice for anyone.
As soon as the class was over we left for Lovell, Maine to visit our friends, Joyce and Roland and their two dogs, Longfellow and Macie (and Jeremiah, the elusive kitty). Joyce and Roland live in a house on the side of a mountain overlooking the White Mountains of NH. Along with that view we received wonderful conversation and excellent food made according to our dietary needs. Joyce is an awesome hostess and I fear taken advantage, but I won’t stop visiting until she puts up a “stay away” sign.
On Sunday, we went to Joyce and Roland’s church service in North Conway. I really enjoyed it a lot. Of course, we were sitting in the knitting section and Joyce and I had our needles clicking through most of the service. I love that we were able to do that.
After church, Barb and I made a quick stop at the Bean Pod, a Soyfire candle shop in N. Conway, so I could stock up. http://www.beanpodcandle.com/beanpod/ They have the best candles and I make it a point to get one or two whenever I am in town. They are also next door to Close Knit Sisters http://www.closeknitsisters.com/ , but I am trying to reduce my current stash so did not even put a toe in their door. It was hard, though.
I took the scenic route across NH302 through Crawford Notch. It was a winter wonderland full of cross country skiers, snowshoes, and snowmobiles. Mount Washington was shrouded in snow clouds but the drive was still beautiful. As we came around the corner, Barb looked over and said, “WoW!! What is that?” “That, Barb, is where we are having lunch!”
The Mount Washington Hotel is a magnificent 108 year old hotel that was built for the wealthy. The lunch was outstanding (and they made it according to our dietary needs). We wandered around a bit and then left with plans of returning soon. What a great place!
Our last stop was in Plymouth to visit my son, his wife, and the grandkids. It was a lot of fun but I am still reeling from watching my Lizzie playing Big Game Hunter on the Wii. I couldn’t bring myself to point a gun at the deer on the television screen but that chubby cheeked little angel was going at it like a maniac. This pacifist grandma was shocked! It was surreal and I can’t even think about it without shaking my head. You can be certain that I was not the one that purchased that particularly Christmas gift.
After we got back to Concord we had a nice dinner and played a few games of cribbage until we couldn’t count the cards anymore and realized we were exhausted. The weekend ended on a great note and I was sorry to see Barb go. It was great to have her here and we had the chance to exchange notes on our respective food plans. She has lost fifty pounds since last June by just cutting out sugar and flour and she looks great. I am hoping to have at least the same success and plan on wearing some of her clothes on my way down. As the oldest, I have never had to wear hand me downs but I will gladly take what she gets too small for and then pass them on as I get smaller. Our common goal is to get fit enough to snow shoe and stay at the Mount Washington Hotel next winter.
Time to settle in to read by the fire on this snowy day.
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