This is the second night of this series of freezing weather. The moon, barely gibbous, illuminates the fields growing only frost, and the stars here in a place so far from any man made lights are awesome. I smell the smoke from a fire in the main house and I am cozy in my studio, happy to be finishing a quilt that I quite like.
There is a particular silence in very cold weather. I used to love the silence of new fallen snow when I lived in the north, and even here with frost brushing the land there is that silence of the land hunkering down and waiting, inviting me to think.
I think of the kids I know from volunteering in a local public school who are probably trying to keep warm this night in ramshackle trailers and shacks. Some of them do not have warm jackets. They are probably gathered around space heaters and the oven, if they have one. I think of the kids who actually have jackets but they need to have zippers fixed or a button replaced. I try to do this for them, but really, they need so much more.
I leave a check in the school office so that ten jackets can be bought. One cannot fix everything. It's just bird by bird trying to help.
And then I read about this disaster of a governor we now have who is putting on a multimillion dollar inaugural party, and wanting to dismantle our public schools. I just wish he would spend one cold night with Miguel and his seven siblings in a very small dwelling with little food and nothing comfortable where anxiety is the dominant emotion.
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