Winter Gold: Witch Hazel
My hands have never been so cold. I’m wearing gloves but they’re too thin, and the wind is howling. It’s what they used to call a lazy wind–it goes right through you instead of taking the trouble to go around. The skyscrapers of New York City make canyons for the wind to flow through like a bitter river. Cold gusts are slipping icy fingers down the back of my neck. Central Park is full of trees, but there’s nary a leaf anywhere to be seen (not counting pine needles). You wouldn’t think anything would be flowering now, in the darkest days of December. And...
Read MoreEver Green
The red and orange and gold leaves are gone, turned to crumpled brown paper. Now, in the dark days of winter, the evergreen trees come into their own. They’ve been there all along, of course, hidden by autumn’s lavish foliage. Now the green shines amid the bare branches. The spruces create a geometric shape, a long, narrow triangle against the skyline. Pines are ragged, unsymmetrical, lovably awkward. On north-facing slopes, graceful hemlocks shade the hillside. Sometimes the trees are frosted by snow, sometimes they sing in the wind. But the main thing about evergreens is that they’re...
Read MoreBan Fracking
Reading the wonderful news about Governor Cuomo’s position on fracking. I just hope it’s not too good to be true. We need light like this, hope like this, in the darkest time of the year. The following is a repost of something I wrote almost exactly a year ago… Today I went to an anti-fracking rally at the Empire State Plaza in Albany NY. I almost didn’t go—it’s not like I don’t have a hundred and seventeen other things to do, and besides I knew I would never find a parking space. But at the last minute I decided to show up. Me and two thousand other people. Everyone...
Read MoreEvergreens: Deck the Halls
Welcome to December. It’s a month of irony, I find–the month dedicated to the celebration of light, in which we have the least amount of light. Days so short they seem to end before lunch. Cloudy skies, elusive sun. It’s the month in which winter starts, and ironically the one which is devoted to greenery. I mean, when else do people actually lug entire trees into their living rooms? Behavior that would seem eccentric in May makes complete sense in December. One of the best things about December, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, is that almost everywhere you go,...
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