Zero Sum

Nothing to be gained. Napped, got back up about midnight to tend the fire, went outside to pee and it smelled like snow. Also, the deer moved through the yard this afternoon, eating ferns under the leaves, and the birds were all stuffing themselves with sumac seeds. Myself, I finished the last pone of cornbread, toasted, with marmalade, put the beans on to soak. These are old beans, five years or more, and they'll need to cook for hours. I'm prepared to offer that service, move my entire office to the island (a legal pad, a pen, and my drink) so that I can occasionally stir the beans and smell them. I might listen to a cello suite, some delta blues. Another nap, up to stoke the fire, bring in more large pieces of wood, starts snowing for real about ten. Lovely and quiet. I don't mind tracking in snow because the house needs the moisture, but it certainly is a mess. A last trip outside, walk the driveway. It's fairly brutal. I have to stop at the print shop on the way home and knock off the snow. I got the beans started, caramelized some onions, drained off the soaking water, chicken stock, the diced jowl, roasted peppers, brought it to a boil and pulled it off direct heat. Simmer all day, then skim off the pork dice, which floats to the top, and cook them down to cracklings, add them back and reserve enough fat to cook eggs for a week. By early afternoon I can no longer see the other side of the hollow, then it starts snowing harder, someplace between a blizzard and a white-out. Stoke up the stove and try to build some heat. Curl up with a book. My back-up position is to move my writing chair over next to the stove, read there, retreat to the mummy bag on the sofa for the occasional nap. The pot of beans are outside on the porch, under an over-turned milk crate, with a cast iron brick on top. Considering the six inches of new snow, I don't expect to be interrupted. As I still have electricity, I listen to some early blues, start another paragraph, drink smoked black tea. We're already at a Class Two Snow Emergency, don't drive unless you have to, and a Class Three certainly by tomorrow morning, when they shoot you on sight. I just dig in, no reason to go anywhere. The Latin word for hearth is focus. The word companion, is "to share bread with". I amuse myself with words. A cheap date. There's an extremely subtle sound of snow falling, it's difficult to describe, it most resembles the sound of fat on a griddle. Very fragile snowflakes dissolving. A blanket of snow already, I'd opened the back door, to go out and pee, but it was just too beautiful to disturb, so I peed in a coffee can. It's supposed to snow all night, not quite as cold, still, I wake to stoke the stove, and get up for a while. Surprised to have power, but there was very little wind; when I went to sleep the snow was falling straight down. The muffled sound seems like a hearing disorder. Acute Silence. Trip the breaker for the refrigerator and sit in the dark. Think about memory and the nature of reality for an hour or two, then decide to make a cup of coffee, make the transition from yesterday into today. Barely getting light and everything is blue, the blanket of snow, the rim of sky. I bring in the pot of beans and put them on the coolest part of the stove, make my foray outdoors, split a little kindling, rake out hot ashes. A great pot of beans, the jowl cracklings are wonderful. I actually found a French recipe that cooks beans the same way. I spent several hours reading about cooking large cuts of meat. South American recipes, festivals, weddings, and mostly simple directions: impale a large piece of meat on something, plant it in front of a fire, leaning away, collect the drippings and baste with them. Pretty basic cooking, I'm sure we were doing this 10,000 years ago. I want to get down to B's for the great pot roast feed tomorrow, but I dread the walk back up the hill just at dusk. Rule of thumb is that if I don't walk down the hill, I don't have to walk back up. I'd love the company, the conversation, the food; but returning to a cold house, after dark, does not appeal. I could spend the night at B's, hike up the morning after. If I stayed home, I could stay warm, but I lean toward conversation.