I Look Familiar to Me, or Winter’s Old Already

The world is a different place when the windchill is far below zero. 

Frankly, if you don’t have to go anywhere, just don’t.  The smart money is on staying indoors, anyway. 

Staying vigorously, sternly indoors.

It is Day Two of a brittle four-day siege.    

I responded to Day One by sorting through mounds of domestic paperwork and wearing flannel pants. 

Today?  I am waiting for the plumber – and the lesson that I know is coming regarding cast iron pipes and feminine hygiene products.   I have mentally begun composing the text that I will send to the gals in the downstairs unit and am wondering if it would be inappropriate to do it in rhyme…

It’s Day Two of Four. 

I have time on my hands.  

And, apparently, my hands on my face.

I don’t know when it started, but there I was, around 3:00, 3:15 yesterday afternoon, the sound of the wind coming through the gaps in the windows, just hanging around, feeling my face. 

Absentmindedly, thoughtlessly feeling my face.

Did I say it was far below zero outside? 

Things get weird in Minneapolis about this time of year.

“Like a peach,” I think smugly.  “I feel like my grandma.”

My grandmother’s face, finely pored and as soft as a baby’s bottom: the woman was as kind and as pure of heart as they come.  She was a farm woman, a woman of flower beds and home-cooking, of fresh crisp linens and endless, smiling patience.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” I think.

But apparently, they do.

Because now that I’ve taken a look, I can see my grandma’s face in the mirror.

Those are her soft cheeks.  Those are the crinkly lines at the corners of her eyes when she smiles. 

Holy moley.  I can see my grandma’s face in the mirror. 

Not all of it.

Not yet.

But there she is, smiling. 

Waiting.

Like I said:  it gets weird in Minneapolis at this time of year.