Musings from the Depth of Winter
On the warmth of handwritten letters, handcrafted objects, and a wood stove
The deep snow of February is piling up, insulating our little cabin against the wind and dazzling our eyes on sunny days.
It has been incredibly cold since the start of the New Year; every week we have had several nights well below zero and several days with temperatures in the single digits. We love our salvaged antique windows, but they were letting a great deal of cold air into the house, so Taylor has been constructing frames of plexiglass to fit into our windowsills and act as storm windows. So far he has finished more than half of them, and the very draftiest windows are sealed now.
On the coldest nights we are still taking jars of hot water into bed with us, and we have begun to understand more about the purpose of the night caps and bed curtains referred to in older literature! After one very mild winter and two winters spent traveling in more temperate climes, we are reacclimating ourselves to the deep cold. Meanwhile our kitten Chaga seems to be part lynx or snow leopard.
Although it has not been particularly snowy in some parts of the state, we seem to live in a magical snow globe here. One week we got an inch or two of snow every day, even though there wasn’t any predicted in the forecast. In the last few days we had 14 inches of new powder added to the deep, deep drifts in our woods.
Thankfully our wood cookstove puts out a good deal of heat while also keeping the kettle always hot and giving us a generous space in which to bake bread and scones or to simmer warming soups and stews. We warm ourselves from the inside as well as out.
Yesterday morning, our oldest daughter embarked on a backcountry skiing expedition up the length of Vermont, which will last until mud season (our “fifth season” that starts in late March). She and twelve other students have spent the past 3 weeks preparing for their journey: dehydrating food, learning to backcountry ski while wearing a backpack full of wood, acclimating to the cold with polar pond plunges, learning wilderness first aid, and doing plenty of journaling. Now they are somewhere in the backcountry, hauling their gear on their backs and sleeping in tents under the freezing stars. When the snow melts, they will exchange skis for bikes, and in the spring will switch to canoes and paddle south down the Hudson River.
The entire semester is tech-free, but we have had several precious letters (we have never been this excited to check the mail!). After so many years of homeschooling and traveling together, it feels like a huge hole has been left by one child leaving. And it can feel tough to not even be able to hear her voice. But the exchange of letters has a sacredness to it that is so beautiful. Seeing our daughter’s careful handwriting on stationary that she made herself gives a warm life to our correspondence that is hard to replicate in texts or email. Even just knowing that she held the letter in her own hands before it was mailed and delivered to us makes her feel near. During the day I store up anecdotes and descriptions to share with our daughter in a future letter, and it brings her presence close to my heart in a way that I have not experienced before.
The weekend before we dropped our daughter off, I took a new basket class and learned to work with birchbark and leather. I find such joy in turning rustic, natural materials into something complex and beautiful, but one of my favorite things about basketry is how it gives my brain a rest. I focus so much on what my hands are doing that my spinning thoughts and concerns float away for the duration of the class and leave me feeling free and light. When I come home at the end of the weekend with a beautiful basket, my heart and soul warm with the delight of accomplishment.
I am grateful to have the Roots School just down the road, where I can periodically escape and focus on learning and deepening such skills. Starting this month, I will be doing a new long-term class there called A Handcrafted Life, which will include classes on blacksmithing, bowl and spoon carving, and broom-making as well as basketry. There is something both exhilarating and deeply satisfying about crafting objects that we use on a daily basis. When I choose a spoon to stir the onions I am sautéing for dinner, there is qualitative difference between one that Taylor or our son has carved, and one bought at a big box store. There is life in the handmade object, the life of the spoon carver and the life of the tree that the spoon blank was split from, and that life is palpable.
Perhaps this is why I feel so moved when I return home after dark from running errands or skiing with our children and see the soft warm light and woodsmoke emanating from our tiny cabin. Our life here is often hard; we haul water by hand and boil it on the wood stove for dishes and bathing; we keep our cold food in coolers outside; we drive half an hour to do laundry. In spite of the challenges, when I pull into our drive and contrast what I see with the view of other houses I have driven by in the dark—huge, flickering television screens and bright fluorescent lights—ours fills me with warmth. There’s that same feeling of life in our home—the life of flickering flame, of beams hewed by hand, of a space filled with handwoven baskets and hand-carved spoons.
Meanwhile, the light outside on sunny days has an almost blinding brilliance as it reflects off of dazzlingly white snow and brings sparkles from every part of the landscape.
There is so much to marvel at in the winter landscape, not least the quiet that the deep snow brings.
That quiet can be deceiving though; there is plenty of activity while we sleep or hunker down inside by the fire.
Sending warmth and the anticipation of more light as the days continue to lengthen.
It is greatly encouraging to this homeschooling mother’s heart to hear of your daughter’s brave expedition and all the lifelong preparation that went into it.
I love the description of her letters and the deep meaning that they convey, their physicality as much as the words. Today I was planning to write letters with pen and paper to several friends and grandchildren, and your words are giving me an extra boost of resolve to follow through.
Your woodstove photo is a beautiful one!