Last night was cold, probably -6°F, with the wind chill around -25°F. That’s a little colder than the coldest day here in the average winter season, which is more like 5°F. And it’s only December. Lots of winter days and nights to come.
Despite that, the house felt warm last night. Our new (as of August) heat pump kept cranking. Once I turned the heat down to 65° for nighttime, it kept the temperature there without having to resort to emergency heat. When I got up this morning just before 7 a.m., I walked around the house a little before dressing for the day and felt warm.
Then again, for some reason I was hot last night. It’s -6° out and I’m hot. I got up and sat in my reading chair with a light blanket over me until I cooled down a little, then went back to bed. Now, down in The Dungeon, where I keep the basement thermostat cooler than upstairs, I feel just a little chilly, as I like it. I can just see a little of outside through the blinds, where the one vertical slat is missing. Tree branches are not swaying, so it appears the wind has tapered off. I see snow on the ground on the far side of the hollow from the 2 inches we got yesterday. And, just off to the right, I see the bright horizon where the sun is about to break over. We haven’t seen much of the sun for three days or so.
Upstairs, our artificial Christmas tree is up and the lights are on. Today, Lynda and I will work together to add the ornaments, then clean up the boxes and storage bin. Might even vacuum, though that is more likely a tomorrow task. I wouldn’t even have put it up except for the family coming in a couple of days after Christmas.
In all of this, I’ve been searching for a metaphor about Christmas and life and maybe writing, but no metaphor comes to me. Alas, just as poetry no longer comes to me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been working mainly on prose for the last 18 years. Or maybe it’s because I wasn’t much of a poet to begin with.
A metaphor of the Christmas season, a metaphor of the start of winter, a metaphor about writing. Seems like something should come to me.
Well, I will end this, my last post before Christmas. Be safe everyone. Remember Jesus on this celebration of his birth. And as Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, everyone.”