the evening is winding down, desert already finished (ice cream, chocolate sauce). the dogs established their order and played themselves out some time ago. now they are asleep. kala, of course, snoring in a chair in the corner. a row of people on the floor, feet sticking out, a row of people on the couch behind us and television light, blue on our faces. we laughed together though, one of the many points of laughter of that weekend, of that crowd – they who laugh together stay together.
kala stretches her legs out straight and looks across her body at me, letting out one of her grumpy old man noises; part groan part sigh. she slides front paws first off the chair. it’ll take brett some time to make the rounds of hugs and goodbyes so we can head back across the snow-covered golf course to our own vacation rental.
i miss the romance of this – holidays in the cold. there’s the bundling process – you always hug goodbye first, because after three layers of under mid and top layer bundling the only thing left is the cheek kiss between the wool hat and scarf. fortunately my boots have dried from the earlier walk over, though i notice that the rubber soles maintained their chill. (haven’t they invented self-warming rubber yet?)
the first kiss of air braces my eyes and nose. the packed snow below the front porch crunches under my first step. once we cross the road and hop the fence to the golf course, we walk along in the deeper powder. it’s almost daylight with the moon against the snow. long shadows of a full moon night on blue blanket cover remind me of the Tomten books I loved so well as a child. the stillness of the air and the sound of snowflakes falling as the tomten makes his rounds, checking on each of the farm animals. peaceful. the illustrator remembered to paint the breath of the animals against the cold. i wonder what other swedish children remember that book.
the walks home were meditative. the dogs running ahead, coursing through the snow, catching sniffs of gofers in the woods, long buried under drifts. the river on our left, the south side (do rivers even sound colder in winter?) we would talk w/ kyla and nathan, or not. mostly, it seemed such a rare treat to be outside in the full moon with all this openness, a kind of private exposure.
oddly it’s my 2nd new years on a golf course, it’s fortunate they really are beautiful in the snow. it’s not like b—- and i seek them out, if anything, we avoid them consciously, but last year we didn’t have choice.