in the bleak midwinter

trying to memorize a tiny robert frost poem this morning for the new year's climb up Hagar mountain, and to make up new lyrics to "In the Bleak Midwinter," the baby jesus ones make zero sense and don't even flow with the song. but the first verses are so perfect. i want to build on those. make up our own. maybe josh and tyler will help me if we sing on our way up to hagar together. tyler often wants to sing christmas carols when we snowshoe.

Dust of Snow:

The way a crow
shook down on me
the dust of snow
from a hemlock tree

has given my heart
a change of mood
and saved some part
of a day I had rued

~Robert Frost

hands.

I remember when my grandmother was slowly fading in her memory care home, that her hands got curled and cramped and clutched permanently, and I thought to myself, in my early 20s, how do I not let my hands end up like that. I consciously uncurl my hands whenever I notice my wrists turning in, especially when I am falling asleep at night.

My mother's hands do this, now. As she slowly fades, in her memory care hospice home. I'm less afraid of it. I still work to uncurl my hands, when I think of it. But I know, deep down, that my hands will be like that one day, too. It matters less. Some day it won't matter at all.