idolatry

Overcast and great whirling flakes. Some crows calling.

It might be Spring. And it might be snowing now. But I can’t help thinking that I am one of the luckiest people alive right now. The snow, pieces of heavy down, flurrying in weighted petticoats, are covering the earth and the houses, the streets and the cars. A bleak landscape turns into a landscape of gentleness, sweetness, a touch of wildness and lovely beauty. I couldn’t be more happy to sit here and watch it fall around beyond the windows I’m surrounded in. The cat agrees too because she’s perched even more eagerly than me, watching for squirrels scampering in white or sparrows, shaking off the wet. A tiny complete kingdom. The crows cawing in flight overhead. A crabapple just out my window is twisted up in black and outlined in white and just a touch of something else…a green perhaps that isn’t quite there but is promising. Because after all, it is spring and we know it’s hear and it’s coming.
Easter came and went here. We blew a flew eggs, dyed a few and ate chicken instead of ham because after all, it is the holiday of a rising rabbi. And the holiday of spring and spring means eggs and eggs mean chickens. Right? Right. Chicken it was.
What I have to come back to again is the outdoors and now it’s the maples across the street. These are tall maples though, of course, it doesn’t take maples long to be tall but these are twenty or so years old and they’re tall and full. The black branches come to life. They leap to it and they’re nearly unbearable to watch in the shadow play of snow on bark. Even with no sun, there is a shadow and the snow shows us where it gathers. The snow builds close to the intersection of branch and trunk and suddenly, the complete surrounding darkness is apparent. And the tree, the whole shrieking life of it, is brought out like a knife. I find myself and the tree at each cut of shadow and at each cut of white. I’m not sure about dryads but I know what is holy.
This is, in part, why I love the snow

Springtide dances in

Sunny. Air is full of warmth and it is, after all, the first day of spring.

So it is! The first day of splendid, interfering change. My ode to spring consists of Cincinnati Chili and taking great pleasure in the warmth and light of the day. For it is a very light day. Lighter than Easter is forecasted to be so I’ll take this day as my own Easter, my Persephone Day and think a few thoughts down here.
Do you ever find domesticity a puzzle? I do. I wasn’t much bothered by the puzzle of domesticity during today until I whipped together my batch of Cincinnati Chili. I’ve never tried this chili before and I pulled it out of Hollyhocks and Radishes, a cookbook that hit’s the mark every time. This chili has a chunk of chocolate! My ode to spring, all right. There’s something marvelous about making chili. In goes the onion and garlic, in goes to the cans of tomatoes and broth and beans. Next is an army of spices: cinnamon, chili powder, cumin, allspice, ground cloves and cayenne powder and a bay leaf. Of course, salt. And presto. It cooks, it sputters, it bubbles and an hour or two pass by and its ready. If that isn’t magic, I really don’t have a clue what is. Though I’m sure boiling toil and trouble is quite fascinating as well.
Chili doesn’t cause me to pull my hair in frustration over burning butter in a stainless steel skillet (will I ever not do that?) nor does it make me puzzle over horrible looking white bits lying around after cutting beef chuck. The airy “cut beef chuck into ¾ inch pieces” command mentions neither red nor white. Are the white bits evil? Are they there to make cholesterol groan, to make our digestive tracts grow troubled and disturbed? Or do the white bits make the taste? In the end, I didn’t throw the white bits in. Even if my digestive track wasn’t disturbed by the sight of them, my eyes were. The eyes get first pick.
No. There’s no burning of butter with chili. There’s no troubling white pieces that could have made an appearance in any Saw movie. Ligaments, anyone? No. Chili asks only for ground beef and some vegetables, some tomatoes and lots of taste. This chili calls for chocolate and I will oblige.
I toss, I open cans and toss some more. Domesticity at its best. The chili bubbles in the background and I take some time to reflect. I taste it now and again, to salt more? To not? And then go back to reflection. What is domesticity and how can I be domestic with my expensive college education and the doses of early feminist literature? Does it betray the career woman? This enjoyment of chili on a spring day? Or enjoying a cream cheese sandwich on a summer day? Or making lemonade from scratch just because the career isn’t figured out but by golly, lemonade sounds good.
Of course not. I’m rational. Enjoying making food and drink and knitting and sewing and embroidery and baking have nothing to do with a career woman or equality. Well, exactly. Where is my career? And while we’re at it, where’s my big beautiful house? My big expensive car? Somewhere out with my mythical career.
I don’t have a career. But we’ll talk about that another time…

The sparrow sending this post out is very small but very sprightly and she wishes you many happy return of the vernal equinox. And so do I.

Happy Beginnings

Overcast. Sky the color of choppy waves in the Mackinac Strait. Rain forecasted this afternoon.

I’m trying to think of a reason I’m starting this blog and this is the best I can come up with. I, Hillary Anne Dester, need a place to sort things out, a place to catalogue and inventory, a place to lay down pictures and stories, a place to put all these things out public. Victorians wrote journals when they journeyed and then when they came home, shared their journals with friends and families. Journals were meant to be shared. And I want to share too.
There’s a bunch of sparrows that live in the bushes under my windows. I wake to their chatter every morning and throughout the day, hear their conversations over and over. Sometimes, everyone is gossiping all at once and other times, its just one loner, repeating his few words again and again and again. There are some days though, when everything lies still and no one says anything and no one appears. Where are they? Clearly, they’re out posting.
Oh yes. Posting. Someone must go out and inform the rest of the world of goings-ons, grievances, vindications, platitudes, home sayings and all the rest. Granny knit three socks today, what a marvel! Simon went to work today but he vows someday he won’t. He’ll just walk out of his house and never return. Jill saw a new kitten and hopes someone is feeding it. Is that your kitten? Elspeth lost 50 pounds on her gummi-worm and Doritos diet. Did you ever?! And so the post flies on and on. Not all of us have a sparrow post; after all, there are telephones and newspapers and letters and emails. And now blogs. And so this is my post, my very own sparrow post.
And of course, I am indebted to Tasha Tudor for the name sparrow post. She’s a marvelous old magician, living up in the cold Appalachian mountains, brewing her magic and weaving and and spinning and knitting and cooking and painting all together at once. Now that’s my idea of a magician!
I haven’t earned the title of magician yet but I’m beginning to discover my own personal brand of magic and it’s here, on these pages, that I want to riddle it out and see what I can make of me and of everything around me and other people too. To me, people and everything mean stories and I want to tell a great many stories here.