Home

I am still in Minnesota. Keith and I were talking yesterday and decided that instead of 2 ½ weeks it feels like I have been gone 3 or 4 months. Not that I am not having a wonderful time, which I am. Time creeps in January and February anyhow. So I am attributing the snail’s pace to winter days.

We had to turn in our xc-ski rentals last week (my sister and I) and it promptly began to snow perfect skiing flakes. Today I will strap on snowshoes and head out with my sister’s dog, a black and white noodley looking cute thing named Buddy.

Everything is bright white, all the branches, sidewalks, roads, and already existing snow piles. This is the time of year that a little extra effort of getting outside is rewarded with quiet and peaceful vistas of white. It does take a little extra effort though and yesterday I was thinking how if you didn’t have access to snowshoes, skis, trails, how this long lasting snow could feel so formidable. I couldn’t run outside if I wanted to. Between the calf-deep snow drifts and now hidden icy undercoat, it is a challenge to walk to the car. Well, this might be my former southern experience talking. I know I will get used to it, I know I will.

So I am back home, or at least where I did my growing up years. So naturally I have been thinking a lot about the idea of home. I currently feel shiftless, uprooted, transient. And I am discovering that these feelings are not necessarily bad. These feelings are just what is at the moment. It occurred to me that I have been thinking a lot less about my old home in NC, the home that is now someone else’s home. And really it was just a house: walls, rooms, windows. What made it home was the people who were inside and outside those walls. I miss them. I miss the camaraderie of our street, I miss the ease of connecting with old friends not on my street, but much closer by than the 2200 miles that separate us now. We all had been through a lot together including a lot of life challenges that made us realize how much we needed each other. Death, surgeries, illnesses. But of course sad things aren’t the only uniter, we had birthdays, laughter, successes.

Had I not left that comfortable nest….I would not have learned a new definition of home. Now when I look out my window, I see the Rocky Mountains. I may not have the camaraderie of my former life, but I feel like both Keith and I are growing closer, learning about maintaining friendships and being open to developing new ones. I also may not feel my Montana home is my rooted place, but I am glad for my new friends and the new views. Who knows where we will end up, we do have a map (3 years of grad school), but we don’t really know the destination. Sometimes not knowing even what we are doing this summer feels a little overwhelming. And sometimes it feels like a great, big adventure. I keep hoping the latter feeling presents itself more often than the former. No matter what, by May I will know something and really that is not so far away (despite these long winter days).

Over the weekend, Jeff, Janna, and I packed up our snowshoes and headed out at dusk to the City of Lakes Loppet Luminary 5K (noncompetitive). Whatever that means right??? We had no idea, but since it sounded mysteriously interesting we signed up and showed up for a 6 p.m. start time. The luminary loppet turns out to be a course around the Lake of the Isles (one of the Minneapolis city lakes) lined with ice sculptures and candles. Lovely, amazing. Just another reminder that this rootless, shiftless-feeling person is having some pretty wonderful experiences, just because I stepped out of my regular routine.

Toaster Oven Days

I am in Minnesota for a few weeks getting a new view. So I have left my camera back in Butte, so you will have to forgive the lack of photos. (That is the most interesting element I know.) I had taken pictures of my feet in Yaktracs so you all could see how I was getting around the icy streets of Butte. Instead just close your eyes and picture feet clad in a rubbery web of metal coils….keeps me from cracking my head open on the open ice rinks that were once roads in my new fair city.
We have had lots of white powdery even feathery snow before I left for MN, so I got my super long xc-skis out of the garage, dusted off the layer of sawdust from Keith’s kitchen project and headed out to the lovely golf course behind our house. My first winter sport experience in Butte and now I am hooked. I go to sleep thinking how I can get a ski in the next day. I sail (slowly, wobbly even) through blankets of pure white and feel peaceful and happy and, when it is all said and done, contentedly tired. Lucy loves the wide open spaces of the golf course and runs full speed as if she was racing the snow she kicks up next to her.
So our kitchen is torn asunder. Outdoor/Indoor carpet gone and old grimy cabinets pulled out and into the dumpster. Just the skeleton left, thanks to helpful engineering friends who like to talk about porosity and complex equations and other things I don’t understand. No kitchen means simple meals at home and a heavy reliance on the toaster oven, which can be coaxed into all sorts of uses: thawing, baking, roasting, heating a room for a dough rise, it’s magical. Or rather, it is a desperate attempt at a semblance of a home-cooked meal. I even made banana bread in the toaster oven. A bit dry and overbaked on the edges and gooey in the middle, but it will do. We also have the griddle, which is great for eggs, pancakes, quesadillas, sautéing vegetables. Fancy stuff.
No kitchen has sent me back to MN for a few weeks. My time away gives Keith a few moments to not hear me ask when the tile will be going down, and when are the cabinets going in. Well, I still ask from far away, but I don’t have to devise more toaster oven meals or sit and stare at the empty space that once was a kitchen. Plus, I get the added benefit of seeing family and my sweet nieces. AND my sister has a golf course across from her house, so I am back at the xc-skiing.
Groundhog day is today, and I am GLAD that the furry rodent saw his shadow because I want six more weeks of winter (well, aren’t I assured that just by living in Butte???). What is wrong with me??? Did I ever think I would say I wanted more cold and dismal? But when the snow is gone, no more skiing, no more snow shoeing, and I like this stuff. It is a nice break from a year of hard running. I guess by May I will feel differently, but for now this is white, powdery heaven.
I am including a recent photo Keith sent me from the beginning of the cabinet installation. I know you are waiting with baited breath for my cabinets to get installed. Just beside yourselves. Thanks for caring so deeply. Well, it is all I have photo wise. So take it or leave it. In the meantime, I am headed out for a day of skiing and family time.