winter – Page 4 – Dawnrigger Publishing

When did weather become news? I think the change happened around the time people started expecting news to be entertaining. And I hate it.

Weather makes great neutral conversation. It’s always there. That aspect of its nature is both its greatest strength and its worst flaw.

A weather forecast is a useful thing, even a life-saving one, yes. Weather is astonishing. The changing seasons and the eternal dance between air, earth and water can be brutal and beautiful by turns, sometimes even at once. I’m a skywatcher and the day my parents got cable and I got 24-hour access to a radar image– oh, that is a happy childhood memory. Weather is Da Best.

That’s exactly why I hate weather as news. When weather is treated as an event rather than the norm, when its never-ending changeability is weighted down with all the hype and breathless excitement that accompanies news stories these days, it loses its ability to awe.

In giving weather shock value, we’re ignoring its true power, and that makes me sad.

Time: 3:10 PM
Tea: Glass o’ milk
Steep: One does not steep milk.

Hello, my name is Karen, and I have a blanket obsession.

Some people gather up knick-knacks like silver spoons. Others accumulate stacks of magazines or trading cards. I know folks who collect smushed pennies with embossed logos on them from parks and zoos and so on.

Me, I covet fabrics, specifically blankets, throws, tapestries and other finished textiles. And carpets. I don’t sew (that’s a post of its own, long and full of woeful tales of pricked fingers and having more fun fixing the Home Ec. sewing machines than making things on them) I just love fabrics. Texture, color, the fall and drape of a thick weave, the ruffled nap of a really fine rug under my fingers…yeah. I have a thing.

But I digress. I get cold easily, and I hate blank walls and hard edges. There’s a practical side to my passion. Every seat in my home has a throw on it, every couch has a blanket or two, and I drape cloth over tables and across openings and everywhere I can justify it. I would have layers of carpets in every room if I had my way and a few million dollars.

Pillows, too. It’s heavenly, when the urge to nap hits, to grab the necessary accessories and let nature take its course. It’s cozy, to build burrows of my layers. I have so many at this point in my middle age that I have to rotate through my favorites every season or so. The bigger problem is convincing myself to get rid of the old ones. No matter how stained, worn, frayed, or ratty the old pieces get, they’re really, really hard to let go. They hold memories, blankets do. They soak up life and hold it in their threads.

I cleaned closets yesterday, and I’m passing along a big bag of old throws and blankets to others who may use them. I no longer do. I can’t justify letting their beauty molder away on musty shelves. I’m still grieving their loss a little bit.

But only a little. In the cleaning, I re-discovered some lovely ones I’d forgotten I owned.

Time: 8:55 PM
Tea: Apple cider. I nuked it.
Steeped: 5 minutes. But then I let it sit for 5 more.

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