What is a picture worth?

Words are things and a small drop, if ink falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Lord Byron said that some 200 years ago. Today we have Oprah's book club and publishers who seek out non-writers (like Howie Mandel) so that they may convert television fame into book sales. What's a writer to make of these developments? More importantly, how is a writer to soldier on against such odds? Tonight, let's chalk it up to insanity and move on.

The sun disappeared into the barren, frozen cornfield some seven hours ago and yet here I sit tapping the keys of my computer -- writing, engaging myself in what I believe to be a noble vocation. Except it doesn't feel noble at the moment. It just feels like I'm driving at night without headlights and no one should do that, not even professional drivers on a closed course. I am attempting to communicate a thought that hasn't taken form. Or, maybe, I'm attempting to communicate a thought that rubs me the wrong way. Regardless, the [digital] ink isn't going to fall like dew to give anyone pause. And this too is the writing life, the insanity. Frustration equals writing. No. Writing equals frustration. At least it does tonight.

I know what my problem is and it isn't fatigue...isn't solely fatigue. It's these things that I bet my future on -- these words that wield so much power and potential to move people or change minds or spur reflection -- tonight they pale so completely when compared to the power of the printed image. What's a picture worth? A thousand words? How about 65,000 words? That's roughly a book-length work.

If you believe, like me, that writing is a noble craft, you engage it until your hands and your heart are soiled with words, which are beautiful, powerful, provacative things. Beware. Don't believe, like me, that nothing can eclipse words in their ability to inspire, to transport us to a far off place or time long passed. Like me, a picture may fall into your hands to humble you, to make you question all you ever believed about words and their promises. This picture came to me two days ago and I hadn't known of its existence before receiving it. This picture is keeping me from a warm bed and silly dreams that I probably won't remember upon waking.

This woman is Ann, though her name is written as Anna on the back. Also on the back is a note that her hair is black, her eyes are brown, her beads are red and her dress is red and tan. Missing from the back is the date the photo was taken.

I have a picture of Ann taken ten years before this one, I have one of her taken roughly fifteen years after this one, and I have one taken of her when she looked like a grandmother -- my grandmother. Moreover, I have stories to go with those pictures, stories of young Ann, stories of single mom Ann, stories of senior citizen Ann. I have these stories because I wrote them; they are the core of a book I spent three years writing in an effort to honor Ann. But there's nothing in the book about a beauty with brown eyes and wavy bob. I cherish this newly emerged picture, but the thousand or so words that hide in the shadows behind her are a gaping hole in her story that now haunts me.

And so I'm left to ponder what is more powerful, the words or the image? Right now, I'll say it's the image because it's all I have. The words are hidden, perhaps forever.

The calm after the storm...

It has been nearly 24 hours since the blizzard moved east leaving people in these parts to cope with the aftermath. For some, that meant taking their snow machines out for a spin; for me, that meant my first plowing run through the drifted snow around the property. Except for ten very cold fingers, the plowing was accomplished without incident.

The mercury in our outside thermometer barely broke zero today, which means I spent my non-plowing hours as close to the wood stove as I could get without stepping on the cat, who has claimed the edge of the rug closest to the flame. Smart cat. Smart me. We were meant to be together this winter.

These days of short sunlight don't do much to warm the atmosphere, but the milky light can be a tonic for the soul. Sunrise fills each dawn with fuschia and dusk bathes the sky in the dreamiest yellow one finds outside of sleep. It's a photographers wonderland outdoors this time of year. Or it would be if the camera didn't transfer the bitter cold right back to my ten frozen fingers. They just can't take this cold.

Even tradition needs periodic change...

It is Thanksgiving eve as I write this and for the first time in 18 years, I am not putting the finishing touches on a dining table set for guests. I’m not rolling silverware in napkins. I’m not chopping veggies for stuffing or deciding which secret ingredient will give the dish this year’s twist. I’m not washing stemware or counting out place settings. I’m not searching for candles or printing out place cards. For the first time in 18 years, I’ve abdicated the Thanksgiving Day hostess throne. Tonight, I am ready to become a guest. It is time for Thanksgiving Day to become someone else’s signature holiday.

I remember adopting the holiday as my own when my sons were toddlers. Transporting twins anyplace, let alone a holiday place, meant packing the car full with diapers, bottles, toys, a playpen, portable booster seats, and at least three sets of extra outfits each. Whew! What a chore that was. Cooking a turkey, stuffing, vegetables and pies for a dozen or more had to be easier than that, I thought at the time. And for the most part, it has been.

I recall with fondness the trepidation I felt the first year. I had gone to antique stores to buy extra dishes in preparation and I carefully planned out seating strategies for up to twenty people in a house without a dining room. Those first few years, I even mailed invitations. This was before email. Yikes, it was probably even before the internet!

I love to entertain and Thanksgiving allowed me the opportunity to welcome many new faces into our home. Through the years, we offered hospitality to neighbors whose own families were far away. We welcomed widows who might otherwise be alone. We welcomed boyfriends who have since moved on, boyfriends who are still boyfriends and boyfriends who are now husbands. I recall with fondness welcoming a foreign exchange student (a friend of my nephew), a young woman from Russia who celebrated her first, and likely her last, American Thanksgiving with us. Her day was not one I expect her to forget and I chuckle even now by how delighted she was when she saw our six-inch paper dessert plates that had been printed in fall colors with a turkey in the center. She had never seen a paper plate like it and she asked if she could take one with her. I gladly obliged.

Of course, some of our Thanksgiving meals were larger than others and some, more stressful to pull off. There were a few years when, two hours before guests were scheduled to arrive, like clockwork, I suffered a ten-minute-long mental breakdown. Hubby was right there to talk me off the building’s edge and the rest of the day played out like a well-rehearsed symphony.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those Turkey Bowl football games that some years eclipsed my meal in both anticipation and enjoyment. Injuries notwithstanding, the memories on the field out back are just as precious as the ones that unfolded during gravy making, during dinner, or over cocktails and dessert. A lot of politics were discussed at my table but few, if any, arguments ever broke out. I’m grateful for polite company.

It’s Thanksgiving eve and though I did some baking and cooking today to prepare for my contribution to tomorrow’s meal, I feel much different than I have on this same night for the past 18 years or so, when I’d been preparing to welcome people into my home for the previous two weeks. My heart is lighter tonight. I have energy to spare. I feel free to do something that has nothing to do with tradition or food or flatware. I no longer have to be the one who has to pull it all together in sync. It may be nighttime, but really, it’s a new day and I’m going to make the most of it. I’m going dancing!

P.S. May God bless my beloved Matthew; for tomorrow (at least), he’s the new host.

Prepping for the inevitable...

We've been blessed with one of the warmest Novembers on record. Not to sound ungrateful, but we were due; our October was one of the coldest, wettest in history.

But now the first wave of what is being billed as "a change" in our weather has arrived in the form of rain. Hubby spent much of today and yesterday winterizing the summer equipment and getting the landscape set up for winter, which really means getting set up for me to manage winter.

Just before sunset, we finished running snow fence along the driveway in an attempt to minimize drifting and then he gave me a 45-second tutorial on how to operate the bobcat. If I want to leave the house this winter, I will need to master this powerful and confusing piece of heavy machinery. I go through the steps deliberately, thinking that there's no reason I can't master this, that my gender has no relevancy to my understanding of a mechanical process and my clear lack of upper body strength, which puts me at a disadvantage in so many other situations around this farm is more than compensated for here by virtue of hydraulics. I am woman, hear me (in my bobcat) roar.

I spend a few minutes directing the bobcat around on the gravel, simulating what I believe to be the process of pushing, lifting then dumping snow (an easy simulation when it's 43 degrees outside) and then I back the machine into the shed and turn it off. I'm ready now, ready for whatever winter throws at me. I'm ready. So long as the bobcat starts.