January 31, 2021

A quiet day spent reading, but I brave the cold to make my weekly walking goal. Not sure what tomorrow will bring for walking weather, as lots of snow and high winds are predicted.

January 30, 2021

Still cold, sidewalks still icy. But sunny, and we walk anyway. Working on my resolution– 5 weeks of walking daily.

January 29, 2021

Brutal cold descends. I walk quickly, bundled up, hands stuffed in my pockets, trying to avoid the inevitable icy bits, and post a picture from yesterday.

January 28, 2021

Happiest of birthdays to my daughter B! It’s hard to celebrate milestones during a pandemic but we do our best. I catch a glimpse through a video call, and enjoy the excitement of her boys waiting for their carefully selected presents to be opened. My presents have all arrived and join the pile. It’s lovely to be there virtually, but also a reminder of our isolation in these pandemic times. I fling myself into  moments of joy, while finding myself less resilient these days in the face of our uncertain future.

week 640 ~ an errant slosh of bright blue

an errant slosh of bright blue
breaks the endless plane of grey
long our overwhelming hue
an errant slosh of bright blue
spreads incongruously to
chase my lonesome blues away
an errant slosh of bright blue
breaks the endless plane of grey

January 27, 2021

Snow continues to fall overnight and cold descends. The loudest snowblower in the whole world wakes me at 6:30, and by the “official” opening time for loud noises others chime in. I hoist myself out of bed after a shortened sleep– being a nightowl– and spend the day off-kilter, in a daze.

January 26, 2021

Snow in the forecast, and just as it arrives, so do 3 big boxes of my new book! I drag them indoors, open one, and pull out the finished product. Picture me with a huge grin on my face, to finally see this capstone project at fruition. It represents a twining of the two major strands of my professional life– as a concert mandolinist searching for original music, transcribing works I think will sound good, learning their secrets, how to play them in a way that communicates their beauty; and as a professor of music history, figuring out how to draw students into my love of discovering how formal structure, available resources, and historical restraints mesh to create works of genius. Against the background of the pandemic I have worked on, despite fears that I or the publisher would somehow collapse before the finish line. But now, despite delays, moving from one step to the next, my book has arrived. And it is all I could hope for.

January 25, 2021

Seen on my walk, a bit of color in a grey day.

January 24, 2021

There is something about this stark landscape with a bit of light at the horizon, a rocky point reaching outward, that gives me hope for the future.

January 23, 2021

Temperatures plummet and winds pick up. I stay warm indoors for most of the day, cleaning and sorting, as in Saturdays past. It is so easy for a person striving to heed creativity and banish depression, to unseeingly let clutter amass. New year’s resolutions to walk daily and keep better care of my home environment lead to a frigid outing, but a satisfaction as I settle in to read at dusk.