Magnetic North - December 14 with Vicki Biggs-Anderson

Magnetic North 12/12/17
 
Lasting
 
Welcome back to Magnetic North, where several days and nights of gentle snow make all things sparkle and bring the evergreen trees into sharper focus. The towering White Pine standing on the southeast edge of the meadow seems to take center stage, a kind of palace guard standing watch over my winter world. Summer meadow flowers and deciduous trees proved fickle. One good frost and a few days of wind and were out of here. But not the pines or balsam or cedar or spruce. They are in it for the long haul. Their colors last and I am grateful for that.
 
That word, “last,” crops up a lot these days in my imagination. For instance, on a particularly wretched day of sleet and high winds, I imagined the outcome if I took a crippling fall on the skating rink that annually forms between the house and chicken coop. How long would I last, I wondered. And then, I thought, better to fall outside the coop than in. Chickens, especially starving ones, would not be kind. And so forth.
 
These nightmare fantasies are not peculiar to me. Anyone living in a remote spot like this has them from time to time. Even if one does not live alone. I remember how Paul and I had a come-to-Jesus conversation one below zero night when I stayed out in the barn from 10 until midnight, combing cashmere off the goats. I lost track of the time and when I finally looked at my watch  I felt terrible for worrying Paul.
 
Well, as you might have guessed, Paul was sound asleep in bed. But not for long!  “What’s got you in a tizzy, sweetheart?” he mumbled, trying to pull back the covers I so unceremoniously ripped off him. So I told him. “What if I’d broken a leg or fainted out there? In this weather, how long would I last?” He protested that he didn’t worry about me, not because he cared so little, but because he had so much confidence in me.” It was a good effort. But it fell on deaf ears.
 
“Here’s the deal, my sweet,” I growled at the poor man. “If you EVER go to bed and leave me to freeze outside you’d better pray that I’m good and dead when you finally do come to look for me!”  
 
Another way I think of “lasting,” besides physically surviving is in the way folks begin to see their big decisions in life. My friend, Sylvia was furious when someone admired her new car, then added, “Well, this will probably be your last one.”  Who needs that?
 
But it got me thinking, always a dangerous thing for me. There will be a “last car” and a “last order of chickens from Murray McMurray,” not to mention a last vote or meal or belly laugh. There will even be a last time I look across the meadow and say my morning prayers gazing at the old White Pine. One of us simply will outlast the other.
 
Oh, now please don’t think I linger in the shadows of my imagination. But often they give me the best giggles of the day. Case in point. When I told my only child, a wonderful, albeit slightly controlling know-it-all, that I’d paid a fortune for a Norwegian Forest cat - she scolded, “Mom!  Do you really think that was necessary, with all of your other animals?”
 
So yes, I have a few more critters than most: two big dogs, two long-haired cats, two angora rabbits, eight bantam chickens, five Swedish ducks, eleven mallard ducks, two buff geese, twenty-nine laying hens and five goats. 
 
She had a point. But, to my everlasting shame, I countered with a sucker punch no parent should ever throw. Sighing mightily into the phone, I said, “Ohhh, but honey, this will probably be my last cat.”
Yes, I said that. I played the Old Lady Card on my own child, no less.
 
Of course I apologized for doing that and vowed never again to use my nearness to the Great Beyond to win a point with her.
 
Today, Wolfie, the Norwegian Forest cat, sits on the back of the couch, hungering for just one bite of the black capped chickadee feeding on sunflower seeds outside.  The short-eared Northern owl we both watched for weeks on the meadow seems to have moved on. One day it simply did not appear. The last time I saw it was on my way to Thanksgiving dinner with friends. He (or she ) was sitting on the fence rails surrounding the vegetable garden. I waved as I drove by. The pretty buff colored owl stared right at me. And that was the last time I saw it.
 
Another “last” that I didn’t see coming. And really, when I think about it, isn’t that just as well?
Thanks for listening. For WTIP, this is Vicki Biggs-Anderson with Magnetic North.