Cabin fever

I leave the house in nostril freezing -5 degrees, and started the work week wearing layers and layers.  I watch myself this winter, observing when I tire of the cold, when I revel in the beauty of the snow, when I ache for sun.  Even though I'm a native Midwesterner, this first winter in a decade is becoming a tough go.

So yesterday, when I was casting about in a funk, determined to not spend another cold day shut inside, I was delighted when Monte suggested a Sunday drive to Fairfield.  (It has been too icy for a trailrun in the forest for nearly a month now, and our indoor track run was cut short for preparations for a meet. So we haven't been OUT is a good long while.)

To see the roll of the land again, and the sun, and the soft blue sky did wonders for my mood.  I need the land, having spent so much time outdoors the last ten years.  I need the sky and the serendipity of doing something off-schedule.

Inside the café on the square in Fairfield, see the violinist's bow?

We traveled down secondary highways, highways with W before them (as in W41) and highways with sometimes hopeful and sometimes descriptive names like Pleasant Plain Road. 

We had the good fortune to land in an open café/coffeehouse on the Fairfield downtown square where people were knitting, playing violin, engaged in long conversations, or just passing time.

And I was reminded how easily we get into a routine, how quickly the winter becomes long, how important it is to be mindful of when we need a jolt of something new--a new place, a new adventure, a new view to life.  If anything, this Iowa escapade is just that--an exercise to examine the ways the frontier can fit (and maybe are needed) in ordinary life.

Finding wonder every day: October 6/February 3

Same place, just steps from my office door.  This little hillside tugs at me every day; it is my last reminder that nature is steady, the world is patient.  It says, "Go in there and do good things.  But do not take the struggles of the day so seriously, there is a wonderful world out there waiting for you when the day is done."

January Accountability

January totals:
19.95 miles run (trail runs and at the gym)
7.5 miles walk/hike
3 times out on cross-country skis
9.4 miles on bike (inside and outside)
2 tai chi classes
1 session on the rowing machine
3 sessions using weight machines at the gym
2 early morning stretching sessions

But the most important total:  SEVEN days in the forest.  In the rain, the snow, ice and sun, being outside makes me a happy girl.