I was laying in candlelit warm water late yesterday afternoon when the wind came up. What the hell is that, I wondered. It sounded like some big machine running; like some ravenous monster raging all around the house, engulfing it. It’s a frightening noise and reminds me of stories of certain unfortunate pioneer women, who occasionally were driven mad by the relentless wind and open sky and would run until their lungs exploded. (Hey, that’s in the history! I know it’s hard to believe.)

When I came out of the bathroom, all moist and steamy, and stepped into the office here, I realized that a storm had hit. Snow was coming down hard and heavy. Wet white flakes were stuck to the windows so one couldn’t see out at all. And the wind continued to roar all night.

Emil said “But winter is over! I thought it wasn’t supposed to snow any more.”

“Oh,” I told him, “we get snow in the spring, too.”

He could have been disappointed this morning when the driveway was snowblocked so the schoolbus couldn’t drive into the yard. He wouldn’t be able to walk through deep snow to get to it, and would have to stay home. But Scott was out there pushing snow around early enough so that the bus could come in as usual, and he had cleared a path for Emil to meet it.

Yesterday morning I strolled out to the road but didn’t strike out on a walk. Instead I came back in among the sheltering trees. How can the thermometer hover around zero degrees Celsius in the yard, yet beyond the bush the wind slashes at my face with stinging, needle-thin whips?

Having Everett homeschooling has turned out to be more of a pleasure than expected. Maybe it is simply the comfort of having a living body to spend the day alongside, but he is so happy and sweet and delightful. His little-boyness gives me joy.

“Mom,” he squealed, washing dishes after supper last night, “you make a song out of everything!”

I’d been singing about his antics, making him laugh, silliness. He and Scott have likened me to the humming donkey in the Shrek movie.

I could do worse.

Sometimes they complain, they want quiet, when I am yodelling away, unaware of myself until they object. If I was dead and gone tomorrow, this is what they would miss most.

Everett noticed some ‘new’ birds outside the kitchen window this morning — dark-eyed juncos. They didn’t come to the feeder, but were poking around in the bare trees.

The wind is still blowing out there, occasionally banging against the house as if in angry frustration. It’s stopped snowing, so there should be nothing to stop me going to town late this afternoon to watch Karen curl.

I will leave the boys home alone in order to go. They like that taste of independence. As usual I considered taking them along, but today I’ve decided in favour of an alternate vision — of myself, relaxed and quiet on a bench behind glass overlooking the ice.

With Emil present, that’s not how it would be. I would be ‘on’ to guide him through the fuzzy bustle of public appropriateness. He is not shy or self-conscious, and talks to everyone, and especially to me, and repeats himself terribly, and expresses answerless concerns, and I am sometimes uncomfortable almost to the point of being embarrassed.

I don’t like the attention, frankly, that he provokes. Some days I’m just not up to it, and have no choice but to include him in the social activity anyway — which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, and we probably should get out and around more than we do, and have more company.