Skip to main content

Out the Window

Life these past ten months seems to have been reduced to a series of framed moments - moments viewed on phone screens and out car windows. We live vicariously, together, and I've struggled to balance in home engagement against the allure of endless episodes of Puffin Rock and The Wild Kratts. A recent positive is an uptick in alternative activities, similar to the beginning of the pandemic, doggedly bringing the cheer, even if it looks a little different this year.

 

It's finally begun to get cold here in the South. Last week I sat on the front step in a T-shirt and knitted - this week I had to defrost an impressive frozen display off the windshield before we could do our grocery pick up.


Unable to go outside and with indoor places not currently an option, we've spent a lot of time looking out windows. We got a suet feeder a few years ago as a gift, so this year when we put it out we added a platform feeder for variety. We're trying to attract twenty different species (optimally of birds, but the squirrels are incorrigible) and documenting them in a Letterfolk Passport. The kids are using a nice set of bird flash cards to ID them, and they're pretty good at it, although we have had some creative misidentifications like "a giant blue tufted titmouse!" (It was a blue jay.) I think we've got twelve species so far, not counting the squirrels, and we've been tracking which feeders they prefer and also which food gets the best results.

I was hoping to take my little ballerina to the local production of The Nutcracker this year, but it was cancelled. Instead, we all went to their lovely outdoor drive through version, with fabulous balloon and streamer backdrops and the music coming through the radio like a drive in movie. Clara waved, the Nutcracker saluted, Mother Ginger blew kisses, and we were all delighted. Hopefully we can go to the full version next year!

Before it got cold, I took the Bigs to a couple of drive in movies (resurrected by a local production company). They've never been to a theater, so it was a nice non-threatening way to introduce them to a giant screen, with less potential shushing. Our second movie, The Grinch, ended up having some technical difficulties and they gave us a rain check, but by the time we got home Adam (who had stayed to put the toddler to bed) had it set up with our little projector on the garage door so we all sat in the back of the van and watched it in the driveway, instead.

One yearly tradition that we did get to keep was the Lights Quest. It goes like this: after dinner, we get in the van. I drive through somewhere for a caffeinated beverage, then I pick a promising neighborhood and they watch for lights and tell me when to turn. They love pointing out displays and having a say in where we go, and I love their enjoyment (and quietly sipping my drink while driving around slowly until bedtime). It's been great the way that people have adapted to the current restrictions, but it's also nice to have a small note of normalcy in the midst of tumultuous year.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading and Writing

  #attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing A couple of months ago, while working on a commission project , I started a new practice. I was listening to audio books while working since the project required my eyes but not my full attention, and since it was fairly labor intensive, I took the weekends off (not something I would normally do). Lacking something to do with my hands, the first Saturday I decided to put my speedy reading to good use and read a novel in one sitting (my preferred method, anyway). Then I read another novel the next Saturday. And now it has becomes a weekly thing. The only rule is that it has to be fiction - I read enough non fiction that a novel a week isn't going to hurt anything (and it wouldn't anyway, reading is reading). Helping out with Paper Heart Books and attending a bring-your-own-book-club meeting last week helped restock my dwindling supply. I like to get hard cop
Post a Comment
Read more

Festivals and Fairs

October is the Month of Fun Outings. The weather is generally pleasant, many things are less crowded than they are in summer because school has started back, and there are also an array of local events. We try to make the most of it, since I got used to not getting sick while we stayed in for a couple years so now we ride out the germiest months at home. But before that, we frolic. We'll miss our favorite fall festival due to scheduling conflict, but there will be a small one at my eldest's dance studio, and we're all going to the state fair this year. There are street fairs and at some point soon we'll go and each choose a pumpkin to stack on the front step five deep, and my littlest will name each family member while pointing at their pumpkin every time we go in or out the door.  I've started leaving windows open at night, and sometimes it's been cool enough to have them open during the day, too. My desk candle has expanded to three candles on a cheese board b
Post a Comment
Read more

3.3 - Forage

I recently looked up the rest of the Mary Oliver poem that ends in "tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" because that was the only part I had ever heard, and it turns out the rest of The Summer Day  is about going for a walk and lying about in the grass. That's what she planned to do with her one wild and precious life. I feel like it gets misapplied a lot. As the weather grows cooler, I've been thinking about foraging, as a concept. I am a terrible gardener. Even as a child I loathed getting up early and tramping through the dewy grass to the dusty garden to water and pull weeds. As an adult, I stumbled onto the one plant that likes the climate of my front windows but claim no personal credit for their flourishing. If we ever move I may have to leave them here, to ensure their survival. There's also a pot of mint by my front step that survives on rain water or when one of the kids points out that it's a bit crunchy. Plants
1 comment
Read more