Losenge Sun

Still in the deep freeze.
The water vapor we all breathe out
tiptoes out our front door at night
and gets all lacey on the porch overhang
so that the warm air burgeoning out
when we walk into that bracing world each morning
shakes the snow of our own breath down on us.
We send Matteo out the door first
to clear a path for us.

Teo had his first day back at school. He and his friend Forrest were
reading books about planets when I arrived for the pickup at noon.
We headed over to the post office, as the sun’s orb slid in and out.
In the ice fog, and rising only 2 degrees above the horizon,
the sun sometimes looks like the moon, all white and hazy,
then bursts out red and robust, then turns pale again.

Driving toward our house on Birch Hill we often emerge from
the ice fog and see the sun’s full red coloring on the snow covered trees,
rosy on the surrounding hillsides, which can’t be seen at all from town
these days. It is pretty magical.

Teo loves Mister Rogers, and informed me today
that he wants to live with him. He also has grown partial to
an afternoon show called “Between the Lions,”
which teaches phonetics, I believe. Or is it Phonics?
I actually don’t know what phonics/ phonetics are,
so I’m guessing here. But Matteo learned yesterday that “ea”
is usually “long e” (beach) except when it isn’t (great).
Hm.

Sarah and Kate kept their after school date with me
yesterday at Grassroots Guitar, despite it taking
five minutes to dress down, and five to dress up again
before and after the lesson.

Kate, who’s in first grade, finally has her C Chord nailed,
and moves pretty quickly to the D Chord,
knows the Em and the A7, so she’s getting really good
and wanted to play “This Land is Your Land” and
“Blowing in the Wind,” songs I gave her when she started out
last fall, but she’s never shown interest in.
She’s been doing more of “Down in the Valley,”
“White Coral Bells,” “Red River Valley,”
and “Down by the Bay,” children’s songs
and other three-chord songs.

Sarah, her mom, had her new Martin Guitar Christmas present
which I helped her husband choose – it’s so fun to test-play guitars
and dream of having them... The ease of fingering
which a good guitar has, the sweet tone...
Now Sarah’s committed even more to getting good.
She’s working on travis picking, a rolling base line,
moving more into the folk domain.

Kate (another Kate) co-owns Grassroots Guitar,
and was Marin’s “doula” – the woman who helped her
birth Annika. She was glad to finally see me (she’s been
busy the last month I’ve been teaching there) and asked fondly
after the family. We recommend her to everyone who’s pregnant.
She was really a great help. Marin has been reminding me lately
that it was minus 44 when Annika was born last February...

When I got back from guitar lessons,
Teo was cruising around unclothed.
That’s one way to protest minus 45 outside.

I finally got to read an article about a friend of ours
who has incredible dog-whispering abilities.
Arna is my connection back to being 16 when
I was an exchange student in Sweden,
that other northern land. The photos alone
are worth opening it up. Talk about “spirituality,”
Arna shows that it’s not primarily in religion that we connect
to the deepest things that are there all around us.
(http://www.thebark.com/content/unmusher)

After supper we watched “Encounters at the End of the World,”
a recent Werner Herzog film based out of McMurdo Station
where Marin spent a couple years in Antarctica.
It is a one day rental. Had to watch it.
Herzog had some awesome footage of diving beneath the sea-ice
next to the continent. They call it “going into the cathedral.”
It was truly awesome, worth renting the film for.
The last film we saw of his was the one about
born-again bear advocate Timothy Treadwell
who met a tragic (some would say stupid) demise
in wilderness Alaska, film called “Grizzly Man.”

Herzog has a lot to say, when he narrates,
in his crisp, careful german accent.
He’s never content to stay behind the scenes,
though he never appears on camera.
Clearly he means us to read “at the End of the World”
to mean a final geographic frontier,
and also the end of human history.
In people like Tread well
and characters from McMurdo
Herzog finds people who stand on the brink.

BTW, here’s some fun art from Alaskan kids
on the “paint the plane” Alaska Air contest.
I suggest they award all the kids first place
and paint a whole flotilla of planes,
boost the economy.
(http://www.painttheplane.com/artgallery.aspx)
Helps me remember what’s great
about Alaska, and about the kids we’re raising.
They aren’t standing on any brink.