A Time to Be Cozy

Late afternoon, Tuesday, Dec. 13

 

Sunshine burst forth again after yesterday’s rain and snow and an absolutely magical Tuesday morning here in the mountains, and we had a few more sprinklings of rain in Willcox and flurries of snow in Dos Cabezas in the afternoon. The first graders with whom I worked again at school today (as a helper to the regular volunteer who is my friend and neighbor) were excited about snow, but there were no holds barred when it came to paint colors on their snowflake ornaments. 

At home in Dos Cabezas, my little Norfolk Island pine was hardly an excess of holiday decoration, but it was calling for a little more than the few small ornaments I’d dressed it in, so I was happy to find a little packet of “jingle bells” at the thrift shop in Willcox. Strung on red thread, they were just the right size for my tiny tree. 

 

Painting with the children, having a little tree, writing a few cards to distant friends all help me feel a little holiday spirit, but this morning’s snow really helped. It was truly a morning of magic here in the mountains. 

 

What I’ve Read Lately

 

125. Cantu, Francisco. The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border (nonfiction). I wrote a little about this book (see in this post) when I was halfway through it, so I’ll just say again now that if you have any opinion about our southern border and haven’t read this book, you need to do it right away. 

 

Then I switched gears big-time, retreating to an earlier century and life in a small English cathedral town, followed by a sojourn in a small village in Quebec: 

 

126. Trollope, Anthony. The Warden (fiction) and 127. Trollope, Anthony. Barchester Towers (fiction) took me far from my personal cares and the political world strife of the year 2022. Poor, dear Mr. Harding playing his air cello when distressed – I love him so! 

 

128. Penny, Louise. The Madness of Crowds (fiction). Penny’s plot twists and turns make me dizzy, but I’ve never been one to figure out who-done-it, even with Agatha Christie. No, I read murder mysteries more for the sense of place (Cochise County with J.A. Jance’s Sheriff Brady books; Quebec for Louise Penny) and for the main, recurring characters and their lives. The Madness of Crowds was interesting for another reason, as it addressed the question of why great numbers of people are drawn to distasteful causes and then devote themselves to those causes with their very lives. 

 

And now I’m going back and forth between Peter Matthiessen’sThe Snow Leopard (a perfect read-in-front-of-the-fire nonfiction book for this time of year) and A Southwestern Utopia: An American Colony in Mexico, by Thomas A. Robertson, originally published in 1947, with a revised and enlarged edition appearing in 1964.  

Snow, children, jingle bells, books – and of course, always, my dear little Sunny Juliet! If only she could read, too, and be content with a book instead of wanting to go out again and again and again to play in the snow!