November 19, 2007
Monday

When I started to tell people I was going to be in Wyoming from the middle of November to the middle of December, some of them shook their heads, looked troubled, said tsk, tsk, tsk. “You’ll be miserable!” some said. “All that snow! All that cold! The howling wind! The isolation!” Wouldn’t helicopters have to drop in emergency food rations, powdered milk and root vegetables and antelope jerky to keep us alive until the roads opened?

These people, of course, had never been to Wyoming, not in any season. I had, albeit in the summer, when I’d enjoyed two solid weeks of  low humidity and golden light. Years ago I’d been to Colorado for a week at Christmas, staying in Denver but venturing to less urban areas nearby, including the spectacular Rocky Mountain National Park. I remembered the weather during that trip as mild — crisp air and sunny days, cozy warm nights with friends that made me happy to be alive. True, the place I was headed for this time is 500 miles north of Denver. But I was excited about the prospect of writing without distraction for a month and honored by Jentel’s confidence in my work. My only misgiving was the idea of being away from home at Thanksgiving and not having the usual holiday season I have so come to enjoy.

Below you see the sunrise I saw this morning. My body is still more or less on Eastern time. I get up about 5:00, make coffee, and feed the cats. Then I walk over to  my studio to fire up the gas stove and the computer. Back in the house I do my breathing and my stretching, then do what is now CKC (Coffee/Knitting/Contemplation). At just past five this morning the sky was clear and I stood in the courtyard for a while just gazing at the billions and billions of stars overhead. By the time I’d finished my coffee, the sun was up. I walked out to the road to mail a letter and when I turned around, this is what I saw:

Back in my studio I found that the gas stove had done its work and shut itself off. I checked my email, and found a message from Ron saying that he is cold, miserable, and tired of winter. He included this picture, taken this morning, of the view I would be seeing if I were at my usual morning writing spot in our kitchen:

Need I say more? Hmm?

(Full Disclosure: The weather is changing out here. As I worked this afternoon I watched the tall grasses outside my window begin to blow and Cloud Peak in the distance start to look more like a cloud than like a peak. Still, my stove hasn’t come on again all day, I’m comfortable, and when I came back from lunch I still put only my Bread Loaf sweatshirt on over my sweater. Maybe tonight, though, after supper, I’ll have to break out the Lands’ End parka.)

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