Dec 26 - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you out there!

Yesterday was a nice Christmas day of getting together with family and enjoying company. It's the first Christmas that I've spent at home in Minnesota in five years. I got some nifty gifts - mostly tools for my new studio which pleases me a lot. And the book Homegrown Democrat signed by Garrison Keilor. But this year I got something even more special with which nothing else can compare -- the chance to have spent time in the past month with nearly ALL the people who matter to me and make my life good (and to those still far away, you are not forgotten). And in three hours Marco will fly in to Minneapolis. Who could ask for more? I spent this Christmas feeling content and lucky.

I'm also very curious about all the animal tracks I see going through the snow out in the forest below my house and across the pond. When Marco gets here I'm going to get out the snowshoes and we can go see what animals have been trecking around here. Mom and I saw a possum down by the pond a couple days ago. It was unusual because it was mid-day and possums are usually nocturnal. The possum seemed awkward, shuffling across the snow and falling into the deeper drifts. As for the tracks, we will surely see lots of deer tracks out there, but I wonder if we can find something like bobcat or wild turkeys. Britt's parents got a bear on their porch last winter over in Wisconsin, so who knows, I guess anything could pass by out there.

This morning was grey but I walked down to Afton anyways. As usual I went out to Steamboat Park, which is a natural space along the river. From there I could see farther down the river towards Afton. There's a tiny road down that way, River Road, where Britt and I once biked and found an old cabin. It was white and weathered, made of wood. It had screen porches. We snuck in and looked around and pretended it was our place. It was old, rustic and simple yet beautiful. Perfect in a way. We had once said that when we got older would buy it and live there. But Britt said that when she came back to Minnesota last year with Andrew (her boyfriend), the cabin was gone. Today I stood on the grey, icy shoreline and looked in that direction. The leaves are gone on the shore and I could see over there in the distance and it's true. I didn't see that cabin. It looked like a big house had taken it's place. A simple place gone.

Walking back along the beach I listened to the sound of the open water flowing under the thick sheet of ice that's frozen along the river's edge. It gurgled and splashed under the thick white shelf. It was a very satisfying sound.