Bleak, Windy

Made it into work this morning, turned right around and came home. Black ice projected after rains and falling temps. Snowing hard at times. 34 degrees when I left the house 31 by the time I got to town, 28 when I got home. Difficult drive, snow accumulating over ice on Mackletree. Crampons for the slope. Caught the fire, suited up and split some wood (so the house would seem warmer). Thought I was coming down with something this morning but I was just sore from too much work yesterday. Shoulders, backs of legs, and, oddly, toes and feet, which is, I realize is from extreme toe-flexing getting a grip on icy snow-steps climbing that wood out of the hollow yesterday. Got up to pee early this morning, stoked the fire, now I remember, so sore I couldn't get back to sleep. Rubbed some SOMBRA (gift from Lauren) on shoulders and legs. This stuff works, capsaicin in matrix, with other herbs, not greasy, fast. Slept like a warmed baby for a few more hours. Weather supposed to steady deteriorate, much colder, much snow. 0 degrees by Friday. After lunch (stew, better the second time) I suited up again and went with maul and wedge to the hollow. No way, the footing was treacherous. Ball-bearing hail. One rule about living alone in the woods and getting older is: don't do it if it doesn't feel right. Also, I'll probably have to stay home another day this week, because of the weather, and those big trunk logs will split nicely when frozen. I'll have to make better steps, which I'll do using a quarter-round piece of firewood, dropping it on end where I want a step. About 20 more trips, 3 more times, 2 more tanks of gas, 60 more trips minimum. My exercise. Best improve the path. Wind howling at times, as the front moves through, if it picks up any more I'll have to SEND LATER, so I can store this. B argues, coherently, that I should write in a file and send from there, and of course, I should, but these are letters, not forwarded copies; missives, not files, posts. It's interesting that it bothers me, because I make stuff up all the time, it should hardly be a problem in which program I write. I'd have to sit down with someone and make damn sure I had the sequence down pat. A level of separation, though not one I couldn't deal with. I'd still be writing to you. Wouldn't I? I sense unresolved issues. These are serious considerations for me, I live alone, I think a lot; there's lots of time for thinking, there's even time for not thinking. Those last ten trips yeasterday toiled scant fat. I knew where I was going, considered the balance of the rick, dipping dangerously low on the left (stage right) knew there was a bulbous piece, I split this stuff, and it exactly balanced out the pile. It's fine to feel slightly floatable at the end of a run. I've done a survey and very few people are ever actually happy. I manage happy most of the time, usually I'm better than that. I like where my life has left me. That grimace you thought you saw, was actually a grin, walking into the snow, blowing a gale, in my element, happier than I've ever been. Not that I need to suffer, but I enjoy being engaged. Allowing for heart and windage. I take breaks, I read. But the world you confront, that awful thing on the other side of the door, drives you to action, maybe you'd do something, probably not; but I'd done a survey, did I mention, and the yeses came out ahead. I know what you thought you meant, what I thought I meant, whatever. Fact is, we are so predictable. I leave B's glass right where it was, so we could invent fiction. What I might have said about what I thought I understood. And at just that moment, in my recollection, I'm drawn to a first-person narrative, I seem to be unavoidable, what he thought, there's a long string of gory details. Maybe he/she didn't mean that but there's a compost pile, we made it in the shape of a snake. We bury people there because the ground is soft. Another day, the next, today. When I got up to pee it was too cold to write, added some layers but I have to let the stove go out to clean the ash-box, scrape the soot from the air-space around the oven. Can't get the house warm, realize another problem with the floor insulation, the high winds last night. Cut all the wood I've brought up from the hollow, split some, make some ricks in the house, where, I had forgotten, the frozen wood creates cold currents, repair the insulation. Much snow expected, now saying ten below before warming to almost freezing by Saturday. I call the Deputy and tell her I'm in pure survival mode, would be useless at the museum, worrying about my house. Have to get to town sometime, but I've enough supplies yet. Added more vegetables to the stew, it would have to be called a soup now, and I eat it right out the heated pan, warming my hands, reading at the island, close to the stove. Before I was robbed the first time, and started posting so as not to lose, Skip Fox was a repository for my of my work than I remembered. My pile of his work topples. But I had sent him quite a bit and he just sent it back to me, several presumed lost items came to light. I need to read through this stuff, perfect timing. There's a part of the "Mississippi Book" that I had forgotten, also things that became parts of "On Three". With this addition to the avalanche, in various caches, there are 4200 pages of manuscript. I'm both proud and insecure. Sure not much of an editor. Snowing harder. I think we're looking at a winter event. My daytime drink of choice recently is chicken broth. I got a buy at Big Lots on the cartons, ten for ten dollars, and I bought ten. Low Fat, Salt Free, I salt and pepper it, and it's good, when the temps plunge. Your Jewish Grandmother was right, correct, whatever. I walk in the woods a bit, wearing a facemask, the wind is brutal, the graves are white depressions at the graveyard. Everything stands out in relief. That's the thing about winter. The contrast. The outline is always in front of you, stick-trees and snow, make no attempt at meaning. It's merely paint on a surface.