Clara's Window

Well it's official. I'm middle aged

I just came back from the dentist, who kindly informed me that...

...I need a crown.

I could weep. I am absolutely terrified of any dental procedure, much less one that requires two hours of head-jarring drilling. Crowns have always happened to other people. Usually friends of my parents. But the time has come. I'm turning 36 in May, and the ol' body is decaying right on target. Mortality has been on my mind a lot lately.

So I comfort myself by spinning silk. I don't know about you, but I find silk requires me to be in a certain mood. Extra patient. Process-focused. Not at all minding the fact that you've spun for four hours and only have 15 yards to show for it.

Spring definitely is on its way. Bright sunlight wakes me up in the morning now (and not at an hour I'd like), and it stays light until 6pm. There are still car-high snow drifts everywhere, but there's also bare ground. Bare muddy ground.

More birds are showing up at the feeders every day. Hearing their songs after this long winter is like being stranded on an island and suddenly smelling fresh bread baking in an oven. I often wonder where they go when they aren't at my feeders, and this weekend I found out.

There's a surprising little spot in my woods where an underground stream brings up warm water from deep in the earth. It sits in a little pool with what looks like miniature water lilies before slowly snaking its way to the lake. On Saturday morning I made my way down toward the lake on our trail, an old overgrown logging road now used by me and random snowmobilers.

The woods were completely silent as only snowy woods can be. Coming around a bend, I reached a little clearing with sunlight streaming down onto the perfectly melted spring-fed pool, with its green growth and rippling surface showing no chill from the deep frozen snow all around it. This in itself was an amazing sight - in the dead of winter, you forget how beautiful water looks, rippling and flowing and reflecting light.

But I wasn't alone down there. The birds all knew about this magical source of water and they were everywhere, darting from tree to tree, limb to snowdrift to water's edge. It was just me and the birds down there, and it was pure heaven.