the blue muse

A year ago, there were red holly berries and green grass outside my window.

And sunshine.

My garden was a tangled jumbled mess of mess, I was still 49.

Naughty kitten was soaking up the sun on the picnic table. He was happy to be outside in January.

These days, he is out for five minutes, in for fifty. The landscape is white on white, my garden buried beneath a deep blanket of snow.

This year, I have no holly berries. Apparently, a long summer drought is not good for producing that kind of color. Maybe next year.

Parts of my garden are still a mess, but I can’t see them just now. And the truth is, parts of my garden will probably always be a mess. I seem to have a penchant for letting things go a little wild. Sometimes, you have to compromise with Mother Nature. Otherwise, she gets a little cranky.

I took all the holiday decorations down this past weekend, which feels a bit like boxing up last year and packing it away.

Just now, it is snowing again, almost invisibly. I am cozy and warm and cocooned in my studio, the only red to be seen is the gang of cardinals at the feeder.

And everything is quiet, the only sound is the furnace blowing, my fingers typing, the squeak of the kitchen table as a cat jumps up to get a better view of a hungry bird.

2013 is an empty canvas, and I won’t know what I have painted until next year at this time when I look through old photos and writings and out this same window at what the year has grown.

I’ll remember the snow, and the quiet.

And I can’t wait to see what else.