Into a Winter, Long Ago

The harvest moon has risen; it still hasn’t given up on us. And the winds have been howling. My blogging hope today was to look outside only, with no words about myself. (Even the potato has too many I’s.)

But I guess I can’t quite manage. I’ve been listening to a haunting song called White As Diamonds by a woman named Alela Diane and it is reminding me of my years in the cold north.

Let’s see if I can put in a link to it here: White as Diamonds

Oh, yes, I’ve known mornings white as diamonds, silent from a night so cold.

And I've known lives buried in snow, and hearts that were ghosts in dark waters.

I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be that. And I was so tired of winter when I finally left and found my way to California that I vowed, Scarlett O'Hara-like, I would never be cold again.

But sometimes it was beautiful, and this song brings that back to me too.

I remember when the streets were glazed, and glassy ice encased the trees, when you could walk straight across a snowy lake, when even the frosty fog of my breath was suspended in the air unwilling to drift away.

One night in particular I stepped outside of a house I was visiting, and the world had gotten cold so suddenly it almost cracked, and now there was a vast waiting hush before me, and everything was shining. I’m not exaggerating, and no, I wasn’t stoned – there were glints of light, sparks and glitter, flecks of diamonds in snow and dark streets, and it was magic, and I knew it.

Fortunately, my friend Steve Gehrig was there, and he told me what was happening because he had known such nights in northern Michigan: it’s a diamond night, he said, simple as that.

Every place has its wonders, I suppose. One of these days I intend to see the Northern Lights, and to accomplish that I am going to have to brace myself for some chill, that’s for sure. In the meantime, there are mornings white with fog here (our version of snow) and the wind is now hinting of our gentle spin on fall.