Take a week and stare out the window

Or, let winter be winter

“Why don’t you take a week and stare out the window?”

This unusual suggestion came from my husband as we sat with our Sunday morning coffee. The kids were still sleeping, not ready to be roused for church just yet. Beside me sprawled a cat, whose long black fur was absorbing every ray of warmth from the beaming fireplace.

I had been bemoaning the passage of January, my lack of productivity and focus, that gnawing feeling that I should have accomplished more in the fresh squares of the new year’s calendar. My stack of unfinished books and half-started projects seemed about ready to topple over.

“I can’t do that,” I huffed.

The cat twitched her nose and opened one green eye.

“Why not?” he said.

I sighed. Did I really have to explain?

And then a memory surfaced of a large, three-paned window, the one that took up almost a whole wall of my childhood living room. There I was, perched on the couch, skinny elbows propping up my chin, staring out at a winter world. I had spent hours staring out that window, watching the subtle shift of blue light, following flakes of snow as they drifted, predicting when the street light would come on late in the afternoon. Sometimes I would stand in the long white folds of the curtains before anyone else was up, bare feet on the metal heating vent, not wanting to be seen, only wanting to be a silent witness to the morning.

“I used to love doing that,” I murmured. My husband smiled.

Winter is a good season for window watching. We put our bird feeder up just after Epiphany, and since then have been jotting down the birds as they come—blue jay, mourning dove, white-throated sparrow, hairy woodpecker. I’m still waiting for a nuthatch, that curious upside-down hopper with the rusty-red breast.

Winter is a good season for a lot of things. Hibernating. Simmering stew on the back of the stove. Marinating in the images and ideas of those hundreds of pages already turned. Silence in the slow dawn of a frosty morning.

I shifted my body on the faded old love seat and turned toward the window pane behind me, resting my eyes on a handful of chickadees hunting for the black oil sunflower seeds.

The big Manitoba maple is caked with snow on its northwest ridges. In winter I see the beauty of its form. Its strength is in repose. One drooping arm holds our bird feeder, a swaying hub of activity in the snow-humped back yard. I don’t begrudge the maple its rest. Its sweetness is held in secret places.

What is the wisdom of living as if the seasons did not really matter, as if midsummer was a good a time as February for hot chocolate and wool blanket naps? Perhaps these calendar squares are not shaped alike, after all.

And then I began a list of January’s accomplishments:

• set up the bird feeder

• read C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra

• made a difficult decision

• watched the sun rise over a frozen pond

• began a poetry notebook

Five items, enough for a handful. Five juicy sunflower seeds in my palm, bursting with nourishment for winter days. Five ordinary actions, so very particular to me and hum-drumly human.

The cat stretched, shuddered, and then hopped up on the back of the couch to gaze out the window with me. It was my turn to smile.

My husband didn’t say I told you so. But he’s right.

And in case you need someone to tell you, why don’t you take a week (or a month, or a whole season) and stare out the window? Find your place in the folds of the curtain.

Maybe you’ll see a nuthatch before I do. (Would you let me know?) Maybe your vision will stretch out beyond the confines of a calendar square. Maybe you’ll feel like a little kid again.

Happy February, friends. Let winter be winter and the seeds in your hand be enough.

Yours along the riverbank,

Lindsey

I’d love to hear—what have you been witnessing or holding in your hand this winter? What birds are visiting your feeder?

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One Small Glory: Frost

Hello, skip-a-step water,
crystallized by winter breath laughed solid
—no tears here.

You make old men of us all,
hoary wizards casting six-sided spells
with the twitch of an eyebrow.

Is your symmetry arrow flint
or angel feather?
Either magic is fine by me.

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New Poetry Anthology!

I’ve got a poem coming out in this fabulous illustrated children’s anthology by Bandersnatch Books! The Kickstarter campagin for I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry launches this month. It’s for all the kids in your life! Find out more here.

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