I saw a flock of snow buntings, a harrier, and a pack of playful crows today as I hustled the dogs down the beach with the northerly gale at my back (I returned on snowshoes through the woods, where the fresh 2 feet of snow had drifted in places higher than my hips.)
School was canceled because of the storm. After shoveling a little, we figured we’d wait for Jack and his loader. I was tempted to go back to bed, until …May? I mean, if we wait a few days it should melt, right?
And yet– there is something so astonishing about April snow. It changes everything in a way that rain can’t compete with, and makes a person who is weary of winter, weary of Covid restrictions, weary of dog hair everywhere and Papa Bob’s loud TV late at night, laugh out loud.This is my father’s first winter in Alaska. I don’t think he appreciates the novelty of these extremes. He assumed that winter in Alaska was, after all, Alaskan–
The spring snows may be nature’s way of pacing our re-entry into the post-pandemic world (which is how it feels in Haines and Klukwan, with so many of us vaccinated, no current Covid cases, and less than two dozen, total.)
Yesterday, as the blizzard arrived with a ferocity that had not been predicted, I was almost stranded on Main Street. I had gone for a consultation with the local medium. It was fun and interesting. She said my spirit guide is a little boy who is apparently happy and very busy, arrives in a golden light, and is connected to birds, patterned rocks and peacock feathers. It also appears a trip to the Galapagos is in my future. I’ll let you know what develops. In the meantime, she said to watch for those messages from a playful spirit.
Can I tell you that they are everywhere? Who left these books there last night?
And here is more happy news: two friends who were seriously ill are on the mend. “Answered prayer no cancer” read one text. “Bio-amazement buzzing through,” posted another on Caring Bridge.
And was it just last Sunday that we celebrated Easter with the Haines family all around the table set with my mother’s China — from baby Teddy (almost 2) to Papa Bob (almost 88)? Teddy is an old soul, and very sweet, and named for his other grandfather Ted who died in a commerical fishing accident. The cuckoo clock can’t even keep track of how time contracts and expands. That is not a complaint. I’m glad, actually.
We Episcopalians are still Zooming, but the Presbyterians offered a 10 am masked Easter service, so Chip and I went— and you will have to believe me when I tell you I felt the spirit humming through me like a tuning fork, and it took all my stiff-upper-lip upbringing from Papa Bob and my dear good mother (rest her soul) not to leap up and wave my hands and praise Jesus, and as one friend said– “All the others too!”
