Thursday, Dec. 5
9:19 a.m.

Before 8:30 I bolted out of the house to get some peace and quiet. I’d been up for over an hour already, but I am not one for loud music in the morning and Loverboy put a CD on full blast. There was no escape from it anywhere in the house, which is probably only 600 square feet on the main floor, so I quickly threw on leggings, jeans and a sweater, ski pants and a down-filled jacket, and brown suede boots, wrapped my head in a wide red scarf, and headed off down the road.

I could have turned the music down, but it didn’t seem worth it. So out I went, and I’m glad I did. The air has turned mild overnight and outside there was perfect quiet except for a lone raven flying back and forth over the stubble field, announcing himself occasionally. It’s not very many years ago that there were no ravens around here; they were only found farther north in the province.

Before I was a mile down the road, a little red car stopped and the woman driving said “Are you all right? It’s just I never see anyone walking out here.” After that I struck out across the field, where the silence was so complete that when my feet swished through the stubble it sounded like someone was walking behind me. More than once I turned to look.

Before coming back into the house, I walked over to see the three stallions that had stepped away from their bale of hay to stand at the fence and watch me. They’d turn their heads away when I reached out to pat them, so I stood still and let them sniff at me until the big white one started pulling on the string of my jacket. Then he let me rub and scratch his forehead.

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These are my great-grandparents Ole and Caroline, on my mother's side. They were Norwegian. When I look at Caroline, I see the spitting image of my sister Karen (pseudonym "Jill" on some pages). No one else does, but I do, and I find it uncanny. Put Karen's long ash-blonde hair on her and stick a fingernail in her mouth to chew on, and it's Karen.

These portraits are at my mother's house. My aunt offered me a set of similar pictures of another set of great-grandparents, also on my mother's side of the family. "Do you want them?" she asked me, and I instantly said "Yes, Yes, Yes!"

xoxoxo(etc)
Kate