The Good Life

This time last year I was licking my wounds a few days post-breakup and making the quasi-ridiculous decision to buy a house (again, folks, buy a new pair of shoes as retail therapy, not a house). The rest of 2014 unfolded quickly, buying my little plot of happiness in South Minneapolis, high fiving myself for reattaching cabinet doors post-painting, and settling into my first winter as a home owner. Despite the somewhat ill-advised impetus for purchasing this house, it has been nothing but a blessing since last fall. I love every quirky inch of it, even the sidewalk that's going to cost me a pretty penny to replace, even the fire alarm that mistakes a steamy shower for a life-threatening blaze. This house has made Minneapolis a home.

But I didn't know how much more of a home it would become with another beating heart inside these stucco walls. Little Debbie is six years old, a rescue I adopted almost exactly a month ago.  She's, by best guess, a mixture of basset hound and lab, and is thus a healthy mix of lazy (basset) and playful (lab). Her little butt wiggles with joy when I get home after work and she's perfectly content squeezing in between the couch cushions, tummy in the air, while I watch TV.

She tucks herself under my arm whenever I'm sitting somewhere she can snuggle into, and she thumps her tail like a drum on these hardwood floors when I'm spending too long on the computer and not paying her enough attention. The clickety-clack of her nails on the floor, her whine if I close the bathroom door in her face, the thump of her tail against my not-long-for-this-world Ikea lamp, they're noises I didn't know this house was missing.  And now that they're there, it's hard to imagine a home without her small and mighty self.

I'm infrequently frustrated by my singleness. I, of course, expected to be married by now. But, honestly, the failed delivery on that expectation has not caused me as much heartache as I think a younger me would have imagined. The fullness of my life always astonishes me, because it is so much richer than I deserve. And even in moments of great contentedness, I'm overwhelmed by how much joy God continues to delivers into my life. And Little Debbie is just one such joy, a happy, loving example of what it means to rest in the simplest things. A good walk, a good meal, a good belly scratch. You're right, little girl, it's a good, good life.

A House

I signed a bunch of papers tonight that evidently indicate my intention to own a home east of Lake Nokomis. I got a big, fat number at the bottom of a sheet with lots of other numbers, highlighted for my convenience, and that's the big, fat number I will write on a check in roughly 6 weeks. To say that it feels surreal would be an understatement.

I've fought the home-buying escapade with every fiber of my being. I don't think homes are near the worthwhile investment they're made out to be. I think renting is easier, and for many (most?) people, the better option. I think there are lots of other nifty things I could do with that big, fat number. I think it's exciting to be unencumbered by a commitment to a place, to a silly building, to four walls of (adorable) stucco and a chain-link fence.

And I've fought it because I kept wanting to leave. I kept looking for jobs in Houston. Kansas City. Calgary. Seattle. Charlotte. New Orleans. Seven years in Minneapolis is an eternity compared to how long I stayed in other locales. Surely seven years is enough. Some of those searches led to interviews, even offers. Sometimes I turned them down because the fit didn't feel right. Or I was dating someone who felt important. Or I had a day at work that made me feel rejuvenated, appreciated, hopeful for projects ahead.

But mostly I turned them down because I wanted to drive to my parents' house on Sunday after church. I wanted to run a lap around the lake before meeting a friend for coffee. I wanted to have a meeting downtown and meet my Dad for lunch. I wanted to have dinner with my sister when she was home from college. I wanted to sit on a friend's couch, her dog's paws digging into my thighs, and watch The Bachelor. I wanted to run the same race I ran five years ago and whine about the quality of the snacks. I wanted to stand on the asphalt of a sketchy music venue and get sweaty as I danced.

Somehow over the past seven years, I managed to root myself here. And despite never feeling quite "of" this place, I've still burrowed into spaces that make me feel like I belong. So several weeks ago a house seemed like the next logical step, the digging in of fingers into soft sod, the grasp, the okay-I-will-stay.

It felt a bit like defeat, honestly. A bit like a failure of my formerly adventurous self. A weakening of my proud, independent, city-conquering gumption. I was proud of the girl who went so far away for college. Proud of the girl that joined the Peace Corps. Proud of the woman that moved to Kansas City.  Proud of the woman who crafted a life in New Orleans, hurricanes be damned. I was the first born! I was the trailblazer! Thus, I was never particularly proud of coming to Minnesota. Just one more law school graduate feeling overwhelmed by their options. One more graduate who lands briefly in a parental basement because the rent is cheap and they feed you.

That feeling took a very long time to fade, and its scars still itch. I'd been so proud to be out in the world, watching from afar as my family moved to Minnesota, a state I had no intention of inhabiting. The shock of landing here was painful, and it took a very long time to admit that I was happy. It's hard to admit when you're wrong. And I was wrong in assuming my independence, my let-me-tell-you-a-story-about-my-life-far-away was what gave me joy. What gave me joy was the existence of people who listened to that story, who laughed when I laughed, cried when I cried. And living near those people made the storytelling sweeter, the terrors of life a bit less acute.

I doubt buying a house will make me crave newness less. I doubt I'll stop daydreaming about a life lived somewhere else, especially when I'm shoveling that corner lot of sidewalks. But there's a sweetness in being near one's parents, being the child that's nearby. There's comfort in finding friends that love the person that you've become, unencumbered by knowledge of who you were when you arrived. And there's joy in accepting happiness as God crafted it for you, happiness that, perhaps, includes stucco and a chain-link fence.

Going Home

I struggle with the "where are you from?" question. It's not an emotional struggle, just a pause before I offer an answer, especially up here where it seems that everyone is from some nook or cranny of Minnesota/Wisconsin/North Dakota. Sometimes I say I'm originally from Arkansas.  Usually, if I feel I have time for a more robust reply, I answer that I grew up in fairly equal measure in Arkansas and St. Louis. But moved here from New Orleans.  And before that Kansas City.  And before that Morocco.  And before that Virginia...

I went back to two former homes recently.  Brief stints in both Kansas City and St. Louis reminded me of how often I was "from" those places, how often they were my answer to inquiries as to where I lived, where I was from. Kansas City was brief, referred to as my "lost year" by my Dad on occasion, not with any hint of cruelty, but more so in recognition that the year I spent in Kansas City was a miserable one, a year in unexpected limbo. It was a city I was happy to leave but now am happy to revisit as my dearest friend has built a life there. The time I spend there now is joyful, relaxing, a break from a career I hadn't envisioned when I lived there nearly a decade ago.

The trip to St. Louis has been less frequent, though with my brother and sister-in-law settling there I expect the frequency to increase. Aside from his first 5 years in Arkansas and the 4 years away at college, my brother's life is rooted in that city, those roots now strengthened by a wife who also claims it as her and her family's hometown.  I envy that in some ways, which is odd.  Odd to have an experience so different from my nearest sibling, only 5 years my junior. Driving around the city where so much has changed and so much remains the same (cliches never hurt anybody), I remember how desperate I was to leave at 17, how constricting that big city felt.  And now to return feels equal parts comforting and disorienting. Comforting in the embrace of loved ones and the memories scattered around those western suburbs, and disorienting in how little I know of the city today.

I've lived in Minnesota for almost 6 years.  I lived in Arkansas for 10. St. Louis for 7 (with the added summers in college tacking on an additional year). Arkansas still feels like the strongest definition of home to me, not so much for the 10 years I spent there, but because its presence has been strong throughout my life, from birth to childhood to visits over holidays to evacuations from hurricanes. But St. Louis has a strong call, too, as high school angst, friendships, and heartbreaks tend to burn a place into your gut. And New Orleans, too.  It may have only taken up 3 years of my life, but there were huge chunks of life shoved into those years, and more so than any other place I've lived, I miss it.

I used to feel funny about answering the question, about defining where I came from. I used to hate saying I was from Minnesota when visiting elsewhere.  I felt the need to qualify it. "I live in Minnesota but I'm not originally from there."  This wasn't meant as a slight, but rather as a continual reminder to myself that I would leave. Just passing through, another state to accumulate along my way. But I don't think I'd hesitate now.  It's just another stop, perhaps, and maybe a longer one, but no less of a home. I was happy to walk the streets I stomped in the past, remember the girl and the woman I was in the years since I left.  But I was equally happy to land in Minneapolis afterwards, lace my shoes for a run around these lakes, watch a summer-is-coming sunset kiss the rooftops before bed.

Happy Distraction

I've clearly been away from this blog for awhile.  I blame my enthusiasm over one of my other blogs, The Minneapolite, and how much time my dedication to its growth entails.  What began as a somewhat organizational inspiration (keep the recipes to the food blog, the cultural stuff to The Minneapolite, and let my oldest blog continue its use as a catch-all for anything else I want to say) has morphed into a genuine curiosity in social media, marketing, communications, and how all these things wrapped together influence public opinion. It's all quite magical to me.

I tweet now. Which is odd.  I try to keep my tweets limited to things that interest me in the area, restaurants, shows, museums, etc. I'm not tempted to expand my tweets into more personal territory.  I link to my blog when appropriate and watch my number of blog visits ratchet up little by little.  I follow people on Twitter who have crafted careers out of their blogs, developed a personal brand (so to speak), and rely on that brand to impress upon others the worth of their opinion.  I find that fascinating.  It isn't anything I'm trying to do, as I do have a wholly-unrelated career I enjoy.  But I am curious. I find it amazing when a restaurant I review references me as a "local blogger," and links to my not-fancy posting on their website. When did I get a title? Who is this "local blogger" and what else does she want to explore?

I'm an unabashed extrovert. We recently took the Meyers-Briggs test in a group at work and I remain a steadfast ENFJ, with little to no deviation on most indicators. And I think this new blog and my foray into Twitter reinforces those traits (strengths in some ways, faults in others) and feeds that flagrant people-person personality that other areas of my life lack. I've met new people thanks to my blogging, which is pretty much the equivalent of Christmas to someone like me who is constantly in need of new people to know, learn from, connect with, and cherish.

And it is not lost on me that this happy distraction also provides an opportunity for growth, developing skills in social media that may or may not be important in my career down the line. I think this must be the happiest of ways to develop new capacities, to simply fuss around with a new curiosity and watch it bloom, enjoying the frustrations as growth pains and the minor wins as unexpected triumphs.  So often "development" seems like the result of some trial, a forced change in the face of undesired circumstances. To be playing around with a new medium, learning from vastly more experienced bloggers, and pondering where it goes next...it's too fun to feel like development.

It's a good reminder for me, this adventure, not to ignore my own curiosity. I think wonderment is a beautiful, God-given thing, meant for some purpose. Which isn't to say that I think God cares a great deal about who has the best cheeseburger in town or whether or not I get a kick out of my first opera. But the curiosity is a result of the personality He built, and while only God knows what doors may open as a result of embracing a new endeavor, I trust that there is good in it.

Wandering Within The Favorite

I lived in New Orleans years ago. And as with most experiences, I failed to recognize how happy I was there until I made the conflicted decision to leave. I return when I can and imagine I always will, long after my best loved New Orleans inhabitants move away. And every time, every quick weekend, every lazy wandering, I remember what it feels like to fit into a place.

I am certainly not unhappy in Minneapolis. I've built a warm, connected circle of friends here, watched my sister grow up there, and treasured the novelty of living so close to my parents after years away. And after a few years of constant yearnings to get back South, I finally love it enough to be comfortable with the thought of making it my long term home.

But that feeling has been crafted out of necessity and as a result of great effort. I had to make myself love Minneapolis, something I never had to do with New Orleans. I loved her instantly. And more than loved, I felt at home within her streets from day one.

In New Orleans, I am not a noisy woman. I'm pretty boring, maybe quiet, by New Orleans standards. Comparatively, I feel (and have been deemed by some Minnesotans) boisterous, overly neon, a bit too giggly in certain situations. The difference, I think, is simply a matter of ambient noise (or lack thereof). Minneapolis is a quiet city compared to New Orleans jazz, jackhammers, hollers, and horns. I feel noisy in Minneapolis because there isn't enough sound to drown me out.

My first few years in Minneapolis I thought that it must be impossible to be happy in a place where one doesn't fit. And I'm not sure if the shift in my thinking is a reaction to knowing that a move back to New Orleans is likely not in the cards, or perhaps a result of having nestled into Minneapolis just enough to make "fitting" less important. My comfort level in Nola, if I'm honest, also made me physically and spiritually lazy.  So perhaps I'm better served in a city I have to force myself to embrace on occasion.  Perhaps I am a better version of myself when I live where I don't necessarily belong, but wander from time to time in a city that reminds me of the version of myself I found easiest to love.

The Lake Floor

Despite living in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes for over four years (longer than I have ever lived in one place since I was a teenager), I have never actually taken a swim in any of said lakes.  Until today.

I made the quasi-ridiculous decision earlier this spring to sign up for a sprint distance triathalon (.25 mile swim, 17 mile bike, 3.1 mile run).  While I keep thinking to myself, "oh, I have plenty of time...," the truth is, I no longer have "plenty," but border closer to "not enough" time for training purposes.  My bike is juiced up and finally ride-worthy, and I've marked Tuesday as The Day I Shall Ride My Bike To Work.  But the swimming factor has loomed over me for weeks.

Unlike most Fridays, I have no plans tonight.  I had a couple options creep in near the end of the week but the closer I got to Friday, the more I wanted to be alone.  I busy myself with so many things, I forget to just be by myself on occasion.  With the sunshine promising to hold, and the heat of the early week promising that Calhoun would be bathtub-warm, I figured now was as good a day as any to take my maiden voyage in the wholly unattractive but fully functional new swimming suit.

Lake swimming is my favorite, honestly. I love the ocean, love the waves, but they're foreign to me, more excitement than relaxation. A good lake plus a good breeze, that's perfection to me.

 I grew up spending summers at Lake Nixon in Arkansas, getting stung by horseflies the size of your fist and catching crawdads with leftover hot dogs. For the life of me, my camp counselors could never teach me to dive but I jumped off the dock with the gusto of a champion.  We'd race each other to the lake floor, where it was always colder and the run-ins with fish more likely, grabbing a handful of dirt to bring to the surface as proof that we swam all the way.  I remember seeing one of the Jaws movies during this time period and feeling especially creeped out by what I could only imagine was a freshwater version of the great white lurking beneath the farthest dock.

As I swam into Calhoun, I didn't really think of Lake Nixon until I got to the edge of the swimming area.  Just by the buoys, the water at my feet turned chilly, a marked contrast to the warmth of the upper water, and the mix of chill and the occasional bump of toe against lake sand, made me remember those childhood dives to the deep, dark floor of what seemed to me to be an abyss full of child-devouring lake creatures.

It was a happy end to a long week.  Sunshine on shoulders, the comfort of childhood memories, and the grown-up sensibility to reassure myself that Jaws was just a movie and sharks do not live in Lake Calhoun.

Formerly Far-Flung

I did not expect to be the kid who lives near the parents (especially given how far North these parents live).  As the eldest of three, and thus the first to leave, I got quite adept at living several states (and the occasional ocean) away for roughly a decade.  For this reason and many others, I always expected to hit the trail sooner or later and land in some Southern state where people have no clue that curling is an actual sport and not what you do to your hair on Friday nights.

But my brother is firmly planted back in St. Louis and my kid sister is headed to Texas for college, which leaves me, the former far-flung child, as The Kid That Lives Nearby.   This role has solidified of late as I've accepted a new job that I can see being solid grounding for a career based in the Cities.  No more poking around looking at jobs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, where I kept expecting to end up.

But when I accepted the job, I was surprised to find how happy I was at the prospect of life here.  I have found true, sturdy, beautiful friends here, friends I'd hate to leave behind.   And after years of living far away, there is something wonderfully warm and secure about living near one's family.  Being able to stop over at the family house after church to play Scrabble, to be around for discussions on when we should put the family dog to sleep, to be a quick 20 minute drive from a spare washer/dryer and no judgment when I toss in muddy sneakers after a trail run...all small things, but important.

It is hard for me to imagine life here without my sister.  She is, perhaps moreso than my parents, the reason Minneapolis seemed like a good idea four years ago.  Having left for college when she was 5, I was easily tempted by the lure of teenage sisterly-ness. Funny, I came here in large part to be a part of the life she built, and in the process I accidentally built a life of my own.

Which happens to no longer be far-flung from the people who gave me life in the first place. 

Life is a funny, glorious thing.

Tylenol Moments

There are multiple levels of friendship.  Upgrades and downgrades dependent on your comfort, length of acquaintance, how much you've had to drink.  These things ebb and flow, to be sure, but I've always been pretty careful to create and maintain a solid group of top level friendships and a copious number of mid level relationships to keep things interesting.  I'm an extrovert, and like all extroverts, I thrive on the creation of new relationships, new inside jokes, new dependencies, new shared experience. I seek out such things and have no trouble, in general, in forming a tight knit family of friends.

It has been harder for me in Minnesota, however, than anywhere I have ever lived.  I made friends faster with locals in Morocco, where my language skills were embarassing and my country of origin occasionally offensive, than I have in my new home.  I credit that in part to cultural differences and the habits of life in this  Upper Midwest city.  Many people I met here were from here.  Maybe they moved away for a chunk of time, but they always came back.  That is high praise, of course, for the city itself.  But that kind of experience means you have everything in common with 85% of other young Minnesotans who also grew up in Apple Valley, Golden Valley, Pick A Valley, etc., and nothing in common with a girl who thinks 40 degrees is cold and inserts "y'all" and "mercy" and "heavens" in more scenarios than most Minnesotans would think possible.

I don't know how a non-Upper Midwestern introvert would survive here.  I at least have the benefit of brazen presumption of awesomehood.  I am an excellent friend.  I make excellent cookies.  I tell good stories.  I'm funny.  I can assure you that you will want to be my friend.  And that confidence worked in my favor up here.  I don't want to admit to how many times I invited myself along to various events in conversations I wasn't wholly a part of.  But that "Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm not from here. Does the snow ever melt? Want to be my friend?" attitude eventually did win me friendships, or opportunities for friendships. 

But it has still taken time, lots of time, to build friendships that feel important. It always takes time to connect to someone, but without the daily warzone of law school or Peace Corps or college, the progress is much slower.  I have a handful of friends who I care for deeply and I think the feeling is mutual.  It has been a long time coming but a tiny moment of friendship flashed upon me tonight that I wanted to record for posterity.  It's a really silly, simple thing. 

Nice, somewhat cursory friendships are comfy and quick to invite you to a movie.  There's no risk there.  Sometimes they might even ask you out to dinner, or maybe over for a party.  It's only with time that cursory, maybe accidental friendships build a foundation of habit and comfort that stand up to the more mundane favors of life.  I met my current Bible Study coleader maybe 18 months ago.  We were tossed together for co-leading purposes strictly due to our living in the same part of town and being available at similar times.  We didn't know each other exceptionally well at the time and I imagine we both were hopeful and trusting that God had the nuts and bolts figured out on how our personalities would jive.  In coleading with Dan over the last two years I've found him to be a kind, solid soul with a remarkable thirst for knowledge and laughter.  He's a dear friend.  Important.

Tonight he called me around 8 p.m., sounding like a lukewarm cup of death.  And in the exhausted voice of someone desperate for a coma, he asked if I by any chance had some Tylenol PM on hand. Poor kid.  I drove it over, felt his forehead, told him he had a temp and needed to go to bed. He agreed and I hope he's completely knocked out as I write this.  He thanked me and I wished him happy, health-improving dreams.

 As I was driving away, I was happy to have been there. Happy to have felt his forehead, happy he was tucking in with a bit of comfort (though drug-induced). But mostly I was simply happy he'd asked me for help. His friend.  It's the simple exchanges that communicate the most.  The movies and dinners and parties are so forgettable. The grand gestures so rarely happen.  But an extra pillow for an unexpected guest. The swapping of books because you both love Austen. The I'm-in-the-neighborhood-drop-in-for-tea. The pained request for Tylenol.  They're what real friends do. Not mid level friends.  Not the superficial ones. 

Real Friends bring Tylenol.  And Real Friends ask for it.

Sunshine Makes the Snow Almost Worthwhile

There are good days to be had, regardless of single digit temps, thanks to the sunshine that January and February generally promise.  The incessant grey of early winter gets to me, so despite the often colder months of mid to late winter, I much prefer January and February's sunshine to December's cloudcover.

We traipsed around Elm Creek Reserve in Champlin on Saturday and snowshoeing tends to keep the heart rate peppy enough to avoid chills, but it doesn't safeguard the face from the biting wind. My cheeks were chapped enough to cause tears (below 10 degrees and my eyes can't hack it, they water like mad) to sting the skin. I didn't need blush for church this morning.

But negative wind chills notwithstanding, I will always be grateful for the promise of Spring inherent in a bright, blinding Sun.

The Merits of Cold

This blog is full of references to my general disdain for all things winter-related.  I've complained a bit here or there of my complete confusion as to why perfectly logical human beings choose to settle in a place where subzero temps are too commonly the norm. I'm perpetually cold in my apartment, I sleep with six (6!) blankets, and the 5:40 a.m. trudge to the busstop with double digit negative windchills has inspired a number of quasi-homesick postings.  I try not to whine (so unladylike).  But I believe it's fairly plain that I miss my South-of-the-Mason-Dixon upbringing, and New Orleans in particular, quite vehemently.

That being said, there is merit to the chill. I spent this New Year's Eve dashing about a friend's backyard broomball rink (that's me in red behind the rink's owner, Adam, who's clearly more skilled than I):

It wasn't the first time I'd played broomball, and I know it won't be the last as I've signed up for a church team starting up in the next few weeks.  It's a nutty, spirited, occasionally vicious game that always leaves me with a random bruise here or there and the sneaking suspicion there are muscles in my butt that God created strictly for the sake of broomball.

After the final round of play, a couple of us ladies plopped onto the rink and made snow angels, rolling around like 8 year-olds, with hair falling out of ponytails, skin kissing ice, giggling as we skidded and reveled in the last evening of 2010. The night was cloudy and starless, but as I rested on the ice and stared skyward, the wind gusted and blew snow off the trees, sending tiny pinpricks of white to swirl and shimmy to the ground. 

It was a happy moment, made happier by its brevity and the promise of hot mulled wine and good friends inside. I can appreciate that simple, visceral experience of coming in out of the cold, entering a warm home with the soft glow of expectant hugs, the ripping off of cold socks, the wrapping 'round of a well-worn blanket.  I love that slow, subsiding ache as the cold, inch by inch, leaves my fingers.  And I love to hear the hoot and howl of wind as it begs to enter every nook and cranny and every nook and cranny politely says, "no."

The cold is an evil, hateful thing if you're alone.  And I imagine the extra hours of darkness and the bite of ice are made more miserable without the company of dear souls.  So while I ache for Home (and the aching is that much deeper when you have no immediate plan to return), I am grateful for warm spiced wine, specifically perfect hugs, rosy-cheeked laughter, fellow snow angel makers, and the myriad opportunities to make the most of the frozen part of God's creation.

The NOEL was in the Cupboard

I do not remember a Christmas without the ceramic NOEL. Four greenish, redish ceramic letter candleholders that would grace my Grandmother's piano in Mullins, South Carolina and now hold court on top of the wood cabinet beside her refrigerator in Columbia. 

They aren't an exciting piece of Christmas decoration.  My Grandmother and my parents each own much more impressive nuggets of frivolity to ring in the season.  But these letters are a small sliver of family experience that remains important.  They've been in the family for over 50 years, having been a gift from a family friend who used to babysit my dad when he was a toddler. They're simple and unremarkable, but it's hard to picture Christmas without the NOEL.  Or the LEON.  Or the ELON. Or the NOLE. Or, my personal favorite, the LONE.

Rearranging the letters was just something everybody did.  You did it preferably when Grandmother's back was turned.  Maybe she was digging in the pantry for the cookie tin of fudge.  Maybe she was adding pepper to the chicken bog.  Maybe she was sitting in the living room, crossword puzzle in hand.  But if you walked by the letters and they happen to be spelling their intended word, well, somebody needed to rectify that.

My dad poked around online and found out that these dear letters are not, in fact, a novelty.  They are everywhere.  So we are clearly not the only family with this tradition and I like to wonder how many other kids grew up rearranging the ceramics to Grandma's chagrin.  My dad bought a set for each of us kids and he gave me mine last year.  A small gift, but a very important one.

For the life of me, however, I could not remember where I tucked them.  My apartment is very small, so there really are few places where anything of a decent size could be lost.  Under the bed? Nope. In the closet? Nope. Forgotten rung of a bookshelf? Nope. The infamous drawer-that-shall-not-be-opened? Nope.

I was rather heartbroken by the loss and had even begun to search online for a replacement. (Note: For those of you who want one of these, I recommend waiting til after the holidays.  Somebody out there is jacking up prices on these bad boys and I just don't condone black market ceramic peddling)  But, in the midst of a baking escapade yesterday and the pursuit of a long lost wire whisk (never found it), I opened a cupboard that never gets opened as it requires a chair for me to reach.  And there they were, spelling L-O-N-E all on their own.

They're sitting on my window sill now.  And while the broken window blind, cigar box,  and #1 Lawyer mug may surround them with a bit of non-holy non-Christmas reality, I believe they look right at home.

The Garden Level

When I was looking for a new apartment over a year ago, I heard anti-garden level apartment shpiels from everyone.  The level most likely to be robbed.  The level with the least sunlight.  The level most likely to be burdened by backed up sinks, noisy upstairs neighbors, and crappy heating. 

I've never been robbed (and honestly, I think the bars on my windows are kinda pretty).  I get plenty of light.  My sinks have been fine (notsomuch the occassional toilet issue).  My next door neighbors are the noisy ones, courtesy of a boisterous toddler.  And my heating issues were copious until I called my landlord and said, "well, I'm cold. And the heater sounds like a cat stuck in a washing machine." 

I really love my little home. It's ridiculously small, yes.  But I'm only one person and have no need for large amounts of space.  I'm walking distance from my favorite brunch place, my favorite bluegrass place, my favorite coffee place, my favorite lake, my favorite spring roll place, my favorite ice cream place, my favorite place to buy milk and peanut butter, and my favorite place to buy and sell clothes.  In short, I could survive quite happily without ever getting in my car, which is ideal.

And now I've discovered a new benefit to garden level urban living in Minneapolis.  When we get a doozy of a snowstorm, I'm as cozy as can be thanks to the igloo-erific view of snow drifting up my window. 

A ribboned and tinseled silver-stemmed tree Perches on the edge of my 2nd hand desk
And the smell of butter and sugar and sugar and sugar
Warms the kitchen in its Christmas-themed mess

The warmth of my oven can't reach the window
Can't free the ice 'round some neighbor's squealing tire
But it toasts my insides, roasts them from within,
Replaces the snow drifts with a cushion of fire

My first near-blizzard, in my favorite nearly-Home
Builds bricks of winter against iron-graced glass
And as the wind whips it higher, encasing me in white
This sleigh-bells-ring-are-you-listening? oatmeal cookie heat must last.

The First Day of Winter

It is fitting, I suppose, that on the first day of winter I woke up to frozen pipes and a car that would not start. After giving my car a much appreciated jump, my dad snapped my photo with his phone as I scraped the ice off my windshield and said, "it's like a scene out of Fargo." We drove around picking up some winter necessities I'd managed to avoid purchasing thus far, namely jumper cables and a space heater, and as we drove back to my parents' house I was struck by how different my life is now from this time last year, or the year before that, etc. It astonishes me how much can change in a year's time, and makes me excited for the year(s) to come.

Winter is not my favorite season, as everyone is well aware. But the English major in me loves the metaphor. I love the cold death of the season, the house of ice, the hibernation of everything with a heartbeat. And then the promise of Spring.