Settled in for a Winter Storm

I seem to be in the rhythm of posting every other day while on vacation.

Yesterday was spent cleaning the den, a daunting task. In my parents home the den is the most convenient room off the living room - as such, over time, it turned into the general "catch everything temporarily" room, except that temporarily turned out to be, as near as I could tell by the dates on envelopes, about six years. 

It actually wasn't that bad - it was a jumble of stuff and a lot of half-filled boxes that had to be gone through.  There is still another two or three hours in there, but it is shuffling and organizing hours.  Figure two hours there and another hour to sweep through the living room and that will make a big difference.  I've already made a big difference.

Today however was pretty much a day of rest.  As you can see from the pictures, snow is the landscape of the day.  We are in the middle of a major winter storm that has half the state shut down and the other half creeping through the ice.  It is not really a bad storm in this part of the state, it is cold, heavy, wet snow - but the wind is not to bad.

I took a nice long nap mid-afternoon and right now I am sitting in front of the TV watching "The Outlaw Josey Wales" with Bill, waiting for the lasagna to finish up in the oven.  Other than the aforementioned cleaning, I don't really have anything special planned tonight.  When you are in the grip of a winter storm here in South Dakota, you just kind of settle in and wait for it to pass.

Winter Sun

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The Bones of Winter

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On A Winters Day...

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Thirty Six Degrees and Cold

Thirty six degrees and cold
This morning when I woke
I dressed in gray slacks
And a white shirt
And a gray sweater with
Thin red horizontal stripes
Across the chest
My concession to the cold
Was wearing my warm wool socks
Inside my black Rockports
I drove to work
Stopped for a cup of coffee
Listened to KQED and then
Beethoven on my iPhone
I parked in the time before dawn
When the eastern sky was
Several shades of blue with
Hints of red and orange
At the horizon line
The air was crisp in my senses
And as I walked from the car
To the office
Under a row of winter trees
I loved the feel of
My breath
Rising and falling in my chest
Filling me with a sense of
Thirty six degrees and cold

Winter At Santana Row

I've updated Flickr with a new photo set, a series of pictures taken while I was out seeing "Slumdog Millionaire" at Santana Row in San Jose. I think they capture the feel of a California winter quiet nicely.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roderckdhu/sets/72157611394632129/

It was a quiet and relaxing day here, just gentle and easy I slide into the holiday season.

A Winters Tale

There is a time when the best thing we can do is run through the darkness.

It is an act of faith. It is a statement of trust to run through the night.

We trust our memory of the terrain. We trust our memory of the twists, the turns, the curves, the rise and the fall of the path.

It is a flowing moment of liberation.

Why we run is a winter’s tale.

Sometimes when we run we run toward things.

Sometimes when we run we run away from things.

Sometimes, I would say the best of times, we simply run because we can.

I left the ranch about eight p.m. I had spent the day idly and felt the need to run rising as the evening overtook us. I dressed warmly, in layers, so I could peel them off as I went.

It was a short jog out of the ranch yard to the road and I turned north. It is a mile and a half along a relatively straight road to the mailbox.

I started out slowly, moving at an even pace until my eyes adjusted to the night. The world was cast entirely in shades of silver and gray. Once my eyes had adjusted to the night I could make out the strand of the road, light against dark.

I kept my paces short to keep my feet underneath me, to keep my balance centered, to land surely on each foot.

Aussie ran alongside me, ranging ahead and behind, coursing back and forth across the road.

Somewhere to the east coyotes were howling. I could see occasional fields of stars amid the mostly overcast sky.

It has been a long time since I ran through the South Dakota night. Time folded into itself and those moments joined with these. The run took on that timeless sense that all good runs do. Something surrenders into the purity of the moment.

I reached the mailbox and turned for home. My pace was faster, surer, covering the road I had covered moments before. I picked up the pace, felt my legs starting to burn, felt my lungs drawing in the sharp cold South Dakota winter nights air.

Aussie pulled in close to me on the run home. The pace was fast enough that when he ranged from side to side he got left behind and I could hear the rapid pace of his paws as he would rush up behind me.

I pushed myself hard when the yard lights of the ranch approached, lengthening my stride running with speed through the darkness. The approaching yard lights began to affect my night vision, I could feel it fading.

Some, as I approached the ranch, I was running at speed through the darkness, trusting entirely to my memory of the terrain I had just crossed.

My memory was flawed.

Not badly, but enough.

Just at the turn of the ranch road I hit a rock. I good sized one, slight domed, a sudden solid strike. It did not break my stride but I felt the blow. I slowed down and took the last quarter of mile at an easy pace.

I was limping by the time I reached the ranch. I went inside and stripped down. I took off my shoe and checked my foot. Tender, but nothing broken – just a solid blow in the darkness to the bridge of my foot.

I am sitting here now icing it and feeling that soft throbbing.

Every moment of the run was worth it. Sometimes we run simply because we can. Sometimes we pay a price because we decide to run, because we decide to trust, because we run for the sake of running.

Sunday In South Dakota

It seems odd but the last four days have flown by at a slow pace. LOL – that is the only way that I can think of to describe it. On Thursday I basically travelled all thirteen hours, arriving here at the ranch at about 11:00 PM. I talked briefly with my step dad and then fell asleep. We woke early the next morning (6:00 AM), drove into Winner, had breakfast at Joie’s and then went up to Winner Regional Hospital to visit my mother who was it with what ultimately turned out to be a form of colitis. We spent the day at the hospital, circling out once to get some lunch and once to run some errands. We left in the evening and drove back to the ranch. My mother called from the hospital and let us know that the doctor had swung by and told her that they were going to release her on Saturday.

So, Saturday was a shorter repeat of Friday. Bill (my step father) and I rolled out at 6:00 AM and headed into Winner and breakfast at Joie’s. From there we spent the morning at the hospital and Mom was discharged about noon. We ran a few more errands, stopped for lunch, and headed back to the ranch. (If you are a Google fan, Google Earth Carter South Dakota, the come about three miles west and eight miles south and there is the ranch).

I cooked dinner for my folks (steak, potatoes au gratin, baked beans) and we spent the rest of Saturday visiting and catching up. There were visits from relatives and family friends that pretty much occupied the evening, intermingled with telephone calls. I did figure out how to connect by dial-up, LOL, something I had not done with this particular laptop. It seems to work fairly well, but I feel guilty tying up the only phone line.

Today (Sunday) was far more laid back. We all slept in (the toll of the last several days). Breakfast was catch as catch can. The weather was nicer today. The sun was out and shining most of the day and the sky was blue. The temperature was up in the low forties but there was a biting wind from the west.

We spent the morning visiting. Bill’s niece Mary has been transcribing an old journal that belonged to great Aunt Hattie. Aunt Hattie had forty years of diaries that Mary is working on transcribing. Bill has some of the early transcription work and we spent the morning reading and talking about it. I will transcribe part of it here a little later in the week, because it is interesting stuff, at least to me.
In the early afternoon I put on my jacket and headed out to take a walk around the ranch. My mom’s dog Aussie decided to come with me. I just rambled around and took some pictures and enjoyed the day. It was partially overcast and with that wind my fingers and cheeks took a bit of a bite, but nothing significant. I will upload some of the pictures once I get back to California – with the dial up, uploading a picture of any size is going to tie the phone up. It was a typical blustery early winter South Dakota day.

The amusing point of the walk happened when we were in the wind break to the rest of the ranch. The trees still have some big snow drifts from the storm a few weeks ago, so I was walking up and down over the drifts and Aussie was ranging back and forth, poking into the cover, looking for things. He had ranged about fifty feet ahead of me when I topped a small drift and started a cotton tail rabbit from his shelter beneath a small bush. He leapt up and went bounding off over the drifts, heading straight for the dog. Aussie never saw the rabbit coming until it blazed past him. Normally, Aussie is reckless when it comes to chasing rabbits, but this one surprised him and as the rabbit bolted past, rather then give chase, Aussie jumped about four feet into the air with a yelp. He landed and the look on his face was “what the heck was that”! By the time he figured out it was a rabbit, it had already slipped into the cedars and was gone. Aussie when over and ranged in and out of the cedars trying to sniff it out, but it was probably safe in it’s burrow.
My sister came out and we spent the afternoon visiting, and then it was nap time. I laid down to take a nap but tossed and turned for a while. By the time I was ready to drop off into sleep it was what I call the “dangerous nap” time – that is the time when a nap runs the risk of turning into sleep, and if you fall asleep you will wake up in the middle of the night. So, I powered myself out.

We shared the tasks of getting dinner cooking, I spent some time on the telephone with one of my brothers (we basically passed the phone around). I popped online briefly and sent a few emails. I feel guilty composing emails online since I am tying up the only telephone, so I thought I would write things (like this journal entry) offline and send them quickly when I come online later in the night.
So far the visit has been very nice and the days have passed quickly, even though the pace has been very slow. (It seems contrary, but that is my impression.)