January 1, 2006
Sunday

There is less sunlight than
shade today; . . .
. . . the light
shining at the edges of the clouds
and from the small open areas of sky.
        — Prentiss Moore, b. 1947
            American poet

There was not a trace of snow visible across the backyard vista today. January began dry and November-like, warm enough that I drove to church with my heavy jacket thrown into the back seat. I should have checked the newsletter, though. When I arrived at 10:58 for the 11:00 service, Communion was just concluding instead of announcements beginning. I’d forgotten that it was a one-service-at-10:00 Slump Sunday.

So instead of a formal worship service, I kept the Sabbath as Emily Dickinson would, “with a Bobolink for Chorister — and an Orchard, for a Dome.” I went to the Emerald Street Playground in the city neighborhood I lived in from the time I was seven until I was fifteen. No bobolinks, I suppose, but more than a few of the city starlings that have always populated this area. And something of an orchard, in the form of the tree that I intend to make a subject of study this year. Below is the way it looked last week when I went up to experiment with my new telephoto lens. You can see it as it looked two months ago at “Winter Count — November,” a piece in my Holidailies series.

I’ve been online with some kind of journal for almost seven years. More than once I’ve thought of just abandoning the whole enterprise. I’ve been posting most recently at Enormous Moments, the Typepad blog I started when I was traveling and didn’t have web-based access to The Silken Tent. I’ve been participating in Holidailies, that annual post-every-day festival that got me writing (for a while anyway) in 2004 and has renewed my interest in online journalling this year too. Most of my posts were “Winter Count” pieces, a month-by-month retrospective of 2005 adapted from a Native American pictograph tradition.

I had a good Christmas, a good holiday season Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. But I’m tired of that now. I want to start fresh, start living in the light that I can see in the small open areas of sky.

To be included on the notify list, e-mail me:
margaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the brackets with @ and a period)