Waiting For A Train

So quiet, it wakes me. A few distinctive sounds, intermittent, as the stove cools down. In the dark, warm enough, in my layers, that I was sleeping on top of my down bag, with just an army blanket. Must be at least twenty degrees outside. Snowing again, that's the damper. I can just hear a train, across the Ohio, carrying coal downstream to the power plants. Swing my legs around and feel for my slippers. It's very dark. Find my headlamp and go out to pee. Brisk, but calm, and I was correct, 22 degrees and not a creature stirring. Feels almost balmy. I'm at a tipping point here. I don't want to be the Facilities Manager, and I'm tired of being the janitor, fuck a bunch of toilets and dirty floors, I have other fish to fry, it's not that I can't (though that's part of it} but I don't even care to try. This weather has me a little depressed. Two more inches of snow last night and more in the forecast. It hasn't been above freezing, on the ridge, for more than a few minutes in a couple of weeks. Two Pileated Woodpeckers were the high-light of the day. I needed to get out to the woodshed today, but I blew it off until tomorrow. Spent most of the day rereading MFK Fisher's translation of Brillat-Savarin. Her notes are wonderful. My good friend Joel called from Atlanta and said that I was crazy to live the way I do, and a day like today, I almost agree. Certainly need to lay in more supplies next Fall. Mostly for variety. Beans and cornbread are fine, but I wish I had some wasabi almonds right now. A spirited conversation with my Mom, and she agreed with Joel, that I was crazy. When the sun was setting, though, it was like living in a crystal palace. Make no mistake, it has been a hard winter, but a frozen world has its moments of glory. For about ten minutes today, from a clear sky, it rained those tiny prismatic pieces of ice. It has a name, which I once knew, but can't remember now, and it was so beautiful it took my breath away. A strong aspect of this life, is that it's so elemental. It becomes Basho's winter haiku. He nails it. Haul water (or melt snow) and chop wood. Spring will come, you might make it through. And that's part of it, the uncertainty. But it's the natural beauty that actually drives me: fox track in virgin snow, two crows fighting over a frozen mouse, or the growth rings in a round of Osage Orange I cut by hand, to feed the fire. Gives me something to think about.