Cloud Diary

December 27th

I wish to tell a tale of winter. It shows up with the outlines of a Norman Rockwell painting. Cold that rosies the cheek. Wind you must lean into (a wreath hung over one arm). Neighbors bent over snow shovels and so bundled up that you do not recognize them. Snow that connects one house to the next with a deep powder. Bleak skies of stratus clouds giving way to clear blue with patchworks of white. And when there is just enough moisture and uplift, the skies fill with fancy. Cumulus clouds disguised as clams shake from the soft sand. Dragons arch their wings. 1950s alien spacecraft puff by. And one tiny exhalation from our lungs disappears into BIG WIND. (Later, it will swirl and dance across the plains looking very much like Ginger Rogers in search of Fred Astaire.)

December 28th

I.
It was a long summer of clear blue skies. Not a shred of white anywhere. Today clouds dot that blue. After months of stretching out in lounge chairs sipping martinis or pilsners under perfect crystal blue, we mark the invasion. Some clouds know to swarm together and kidnap the sun!

But I know the secret of clouds.

II.
Several horses run by the window. Manes flowing, galloping east. They fly even before I’ve opened my eyes. I am sure of it. I could lay on the brown earth, look up and watch, even though it is well into winter. But I sit here, tea cooling at my elbow, watching. Castles with towering turrets. A bouquet of roses – each flower waving in the active air. Steam locomotives carrying passengers to Swiss chalets. Rabbits, round and fluffy. Albert Einstein, bristly mustache and wild hair.

Cumulus clouds hang over the Front Range.

December 30th

I.
The wind trundled the bed and shook the window panes this morning. “Time to get up! Before they fly!” The light grows and the moon dims and birds begin to wake. Finches twitter and squawk in the mugo pine, jumping from limb to limb under the canopy. The tufts of branches wave to the waning moon. The neighbors’ wind chimes clang and bell. The sound of my breathing mingles with the exhalations of the furnace and the hush of early morning traffic. So much dry air.

II.
A bright fingernail moon hangs in the southern sky. Cumulus clouds scoot by on steady gusts, backed by a field of blue. A ragtag bison gallops by, catching the first rays of the sun in its fur. Then a wayward breeze brings with it a brown wash. It smudges the moon. The wind billows in the eaves, rattles the window panes. The wash thickens, then dissolves in one swift moment. A rag gets caught in the rails of the fence. It twitches with each breath of wind.

Winter is here: shorter days, lower temperatures, wind. But with the late morning breezes, the clouds scatter. The sun pours down, at first a delight, then a baleful glare. The bird bath is empty. No hint of rain. No sleet. No snow.

III.
A snow storm is announced for New Year’s Eve. I plan to snuggle down with my sweetie and a glass of champagne. Watch flakes fall and accumulate on the ground and on every structure in sight. Safe and warm inside. For now, it is blue sky and a dancer in a tutu leaping across it in a jeté. She is the last act. Those thoughtful, whipped cotton clouds will soon be no more.

December 31st

I.
Clouds can carry smoke, not moisture. Turncoats.

II.
Yesterday afternoon, even while blue clung to the horizon, I smelled smoke. I shifted around the house like a zombie, watching the horizon. Clouds shifted and silted. Winds gusted over 100mph, pushing brown and orange puffs up the Front Range from the south. A small brush fire was reported just 10 miles west. It was soon snuffed out. Another fire 20 miles away roared: downed power lines had ignited the tall grasses of the high desert plain.

Yesterday, the celebrated snow did not come. By nightfall while fires still raged, that was a blessing. Piles of snow can smother flame, but also people. Hundreds of houses crumbled to ash and thousands of people ran for their lives. They did not stop to grab a coat. They grabbed their families. Meanwhile, all around them burnished clouds billowed.

III.
I still wish to tell a tale of winter. But I don’t know all the secrets of clouds.

This morning the Twin Sisters wear a smudged cloak. The sun rises bright and white, then disappears in gray. But fear crackles in the silence. Clouds bring burning.

I pass by the window. A patch of blue still clings to the horizon. It is now encircled in white. I choose sides: I will it to snow. I pull out the yoga mat and, just as I bow to loving kindness, my eye catches the first fall.

Then it snowed, dear reader. All day and into the night. Glorious tufts! Swirling with elan! A release of power! As if winter had been working all along to ease the pain of drought and had finally broken through clouds that it had not sent.

Our front yard on New Year’s Eve as the storm finally hit.

January 1st

I.
There is a huge pearl blanket overhead and a foot of snow on the ground. Holiday lights seem brighter than before, shining from inside white cocoons. House finches, gold finches brave the cold. A junco flies up to the squirrel baffle. She pecks at the seed caught there by the snow, then races to the ground. A squirrel plows through the drifts. He dives, then comes back up, shaking his fur and munching on sunflower husks and dropped seed. We nickname him The Surfing Squirrel.

The mugo pine is a warren. Song birds shelter in its branches in-between forays for seed. Some branches reach up with white mittens toward a gray sky. Others, weighed down with snow, bend towards the center, overlapping and creating nesting spots all the way down to the ground. “Cheerie! Cheerie!” The chickadees are here! They are the only ones who can call out with such cheer on a cold winter morning.

II.
A new shower of snow comes down with an insistence that demands respect. Please douse the remaining fires! Please smother the lasting fear and doubt! Now that you have finally arrived – good timing Old Man Winter! – please lift the veil just a little. Just enough to conduct people without homes to a safe and warm place. Just enough that those who have homes to return to, or those who were on the cusp of evacuating, have heat and light and food. Just enough that they have safe drinking water and all the supplies they need to get through this Cold Open of a New Year.

III.
My husband and I. We two. Together. Matching bowls of soup in front of the fire. An open bottle of wine. We are each other. The birds outside the window attenuate our relationship through glass.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a face peak in the window. I turn. It is gone.

Simple and Sweet. Then twisting. Wild magic strikes, then turning, steals away. Sunlight parts clouds and caresses the wound. Then brown clouds return, ready to pierce through the peace of another day. They dissolve into innocent white. And I gather. I gather the secrets of clouds.

— Ellen A. Wilkin

Note: I wrote this piece in response to the Marshall Fire that began south of Boulder, Colorado on December 30th 2021, right before a heavy snowfall was predicted. It was fully contained in a few days. No one in my family or among my friends was directly affected, except for some folks who had to evacuate, but returned safely to their homes. Hundreds of others lost their homes.

Winter Letter 2019/2020

Darkness and snow descend;
The Clock on the Mantelpiece
Has nothing to recommend

-- W. H. Auden, Advent

I sit in the front room clutching a mug of Earl Grey and basking in the radiance of the Christmas tree. Its white lights and silver, gold, and multi-colored ornaments push back the advancing dusk. As the light fades, the candles in the window begin to glow, and both they and the white lights on the tree are reflected in the front and back windows. In the front yard, the blue lights on the evergreens snap on, and looking out, I see an overlay of white on blue. And now the solar lights on the pine at the back window fade in. The reflections multiply: outdoor lights reflecting back on themselves and onto each other and playing over the reflections of the indoor tree and the candles. I am pleased and my imagination runs away. I am the warder of the dark and the watcher over the last beacon at the edge of night!

The first hints of Winter came early this year with a snowstorm and heavy gray days over Thanksgiving. I nestled down into layers of cotton and fleece and wrote. While I’m working on a project, I struggle for inspiration, and gray, snow-choked days make it harder. I have successfully wooed it a time or two, but have more often suffered total failure. (Don’t try Spider Solitaire. Does. Not. Work.) Despite all my experience chasing inspiration over the years, I don’t know exactly what it is. Writers write about it. Musicians play and sing to it. Artists draw and paint and sculpt until they find it. Actors become someone else in search of it. When it comes – and there is no guarantee it arrives at all – it is not to be corralled. It does not follow a structure or schedule. It is or is not. Some folks seem to have it at their finger tips whenever they need it. Some of us don’t. In my experience, when inspiration comes it feels like being struck by lighting. And like lightening, it reveals something. Maybe a memory I’d forgotten or some understanding that I didn’t know I had. Inspiration can feel like a sudden collision of ideas that were unrelated but now have a relationship. A feeling that I am part of the world washes over me. And everything is right.

Beginning at the winter solstice, I try to capture the essence of Christmas to find inspiration. "Christmas" for me starts with a feeling of security and love that I had as a child fostered by the love and generosity of my parents. It then morphs into a tradition completely enacted and controlled by me. Some aspects are the same: Caroling, lights, baking, eating meat-heavy meals and sweets, erecting a tree with presents underneath. I stare into the red, green, blue, and gold lights on the mantelpiece and let my eyes go out of focus so the colors blur into a magical tapestry, just as I would as a child. (I had perfected the eye blur at Saint Mary's primary school during Friday morning mass. I would stare at the altar and let my eye muscles relax. The world became a wash of color and a hint of shape.) But forty-eight years later, my adult sensibilities come to bear on the process. I make wreaths from discarded evergreen branches, pine cones, and used red ribbons. I invite friends and family to make merry. I love the sugar-and-chocolate aroma of cookies baking and the earthy citrus spice taste of mulled-wine-soaked orange slices. I want to hear the tinkling of bells, the brass and boom and trill of instruments, and voices raised in song. It is a grand composition.

As an adult I love the reaction others sometimes have to my winter composition. For example, new neighbor CJ pointed us out to his children as we walked by and said “those are the folks with the blue lights.” Lonny, our neighbor for twenty years now, stopped by the house while walking his dog and, as she nosed into the bushes I had just decorated, said in his Texas drawl, “Yep. That’s the house with the blue lights, Peaches.” Susan, next door, commented as she walked by with her dog that I was "too ambitious." I told her I could stop anytime I wanted to. That's when it hit me: I was making myself happy. The whole point of this process was to find delight in my creativity and to connect with others. Perhaps that's inspiration in a nutshell: a feeling of connection, both to ourselves and to others. The completion of a circuit – in the brain, in the soul, in the body. Then we light up from inside. And then that brilliance spills into the outside world.

The final aspect of my winter composition is this: reaching out to all of you. Hope you find the inspiration to do wonderful and creative things for yourself and for others this year.

I Was Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writer's Center

I am delighted and a little bit startled by my time as Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writers Center. It was a period of deep writing for me as well as an introduction to the city of Gloucester, MA: its landscape and its inhabitants. I have met many of the visitors to the center—from the actual “center” to the “fringe.” It was an honor to meet Henry Ferrini my first day there, and on subsequent visits we had charming and unguarded conversations. All the while, I was aware that I was a stranger to the town and the recipient of a free place to stay in a character of a town at the edge of the sea. And all due to the generosity of Henry, Amanda Cook, Dan Duffy, and the other members of the Gloucester Writers Center board and community. As the days went by, the cast of characters increased and grew more colorful but remained generous and welcoming. Thanks to them all, but especial thanks to Amanda for setting up the reading and being my champion although we had just met.

I wrote several poems while ensconced in Vincent Ferrini’s old cottage. Look for some of them to be posted here on this blog.

Calling Inspiration

A nice red Jump dress (Titanic inspiration) back view Photo by ~ggvic~ [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

I saw you down the street
I caught a glimpse of your red hair
The glint in your eye
Then you were swallowed up in the crowd
and you were gone

Something about the texture of
layered limestone on a bed of red sand
in Ojo Caliente
sends a jolt through me
but the moment passes
like an electric field
through me
but neglects to burn the equivalent
language into my brain

I caught the edge of your red silk dress
just then
and felt the soft weave
I hung on as you danced over the water
and soared over mountain peaks
but at 10,000 feet
I lost my grip
and now I am
10,000 feet down
Where was it to? The rest of that flight?
Can I take the next plane
and catch you up
Apparently all flights are full
and I must sag back down to the ground
in this nameless spot on which I have
landed.

Ellen A.Wilkin

Winter Letter 2018/2019

Once again I find myself sitting in the local coffee shop starting a new winter holiday letter. Time seems to slide along regardless of my intentions. This year I’ve tried to focus on the moments as they pass. Because you cannot stop them. And I also never stop, other than when I’m sleeping. Each moment is a whirlwind of activity or a tumult of worried thoughts. Meanwhile the clock ticks and precious moments pass. I have begun purposely to stop: to sit still and notice what that feels like. It’s a strange sensation that can be hard to hold on to. But I’m getting better at it, and in that time I have added a soupçon of joy to my day. This practice has inspired me to nurture myself by singing, drawing, reading, listening to music, walking, sitting at a window and bird watching—or even writing!

Most days before dawn this winter I have looked out at the southern sky from my bedroom window. Multiple planets and constellations hang there. The brightest star is Antares, part of the constellation Scorpius. Starting in December Mercury, Venus and Saturn gather near Antares, to be joined by Mars in late January just as Venus is plunging down below the horizon. The crescent moon itself descended through the sky in early December until it passed Venus and Saturn, then faded completely as it moved out of the path of sunlight shining from the other side of the earth. As morning came on, the sun flooded the sky with pinks, reds, oranges, and a shimmer of pearl. Afterwards, I set to writing.

The holiday season was filled with the usual things: covering the evergreens with blue LED lights in the front yard and solar lights in the back yard, making a wreath from yard scraps and last year’s ribbons, setting up the artificial tree inside and hanging all the ornaments I have collected or been gifted over the years, baking cookies and caroling, then packing up cookies and other gifts and sending them off to family. But this year, we had the addition of a Christmas Vole: he camped out in our basement starting two weeks before Christmas. Occasionally, we would see him skittering from the basement door to the kitchen where he hid beneath the stove. After a month Dave was able to trap him with sunflower kernels and release him by the creek.

New Year’s was also eventful: We rediscovered Roxy Music and had so much fun listening to a couple of their albums while chatting and drinking local microbrews. Dave also made timpano at my request, and we ate it while watching Stanley Tucci’s BIG NIGHT. Good movie to watch while you are eating. Not so much if you aren’t: you will be hungry by the time the movie finishes.

This year Dave and I have found joy together in seemingly small things. We acquired a painting for the master bedroom after almost thirty years of searching. It now hangs above the bed on a wall that had been unadorned since we moved in. In our previous house, the space above the bed was occupied by my print of The Lovers by Klimt. The Klimt had hung in my apartment before we were married. I thought it was beautiful: the gold leaf and geometric patterns mixed with flowers, and the passionate embrace of the couple, brought me joy. Dave did not like the print so, out of a sense of fairness (he had put up with it for five years), when we were packing up to move again, I gave it away to friends. We vowed to visit art galleries once we were in Boulder and find a painting we BOTH liked for our new place. It was ten years before we found such a painting: No Food for Lazy Man by Kayeni from Ghana. It represents our philosophy of life, but it is not a bedroom painting and hangs in our foyer. We kept our eyes open for ten more years, buying smaller pieces that we scattered about the house: mountainscapes, Boulder Pearl Street Mall scenes by local artist Mike Brouse, photographs of birds (some of Dave’s) and beautiful stain glass panes made by our friend Julie Golden. But nothing that fit in the master bedroom. Then I saw a new painting by Mike called Connection: Two figures, a man and a woman, walking away from the viewer and physically separate, but with their bodies leaning in towards each other. When Dave saw it he said “Yes!” and Mike kindly painted a version of it in earth tones to match our bedroom décor. Add to that the floating oak frame Dave made, and the result is stunning. You can see a picture of it here.

We hope you are having a joyous 2019 so far. See you in the funny papers! (Mine are here. ;) )

A Little Package From Across the Pond

My husband surprised me a week or so ago when a little package arrived from the other side of the Pond. It contained a silver Short Cross penny minted in Great Britain for Henry II (1154-1189 AD)! Henry II was Eleanor of Aquitaine's second husband. I now hold this penny close as I write my time travel novel. (For those of you who may not know, I am writing an sf time-travel novel in which my heroine goes back to the twelfth century to meet Eleanor of Aquitaine as a child.)

The tail's side of my Short Cross penny showing the actual "short cross." The lettering is off, but it says it was minted by a man named Hugo in Lincoln, England.

On my coin, the lettering around the edge is cut off. On the head's side it is supposed to read "HENRICUS REX" or Henry the King (Henry II). The tail's side lettering is also somewhat missing, but it says it was minted by a man named Hugo in Lincoln, England.

The note stuck inside the package with the coin. It identifies its provenance. Lovejoy would be proud!

Hubby got the coin from eBay. The package that came in the mail included a note giving the coin a provenance which tells us what is also hinted at on the coin surface itself: that it came from England, was minted during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189), and  that it is one of many Short Cross pennies that were minted during that time. It also tells us that it was minted at the Lincoln mint by Hugo Moneyer who was, as his name indicates the moneyer or minter of coins there.

I got a chill reading this slip of paper, remembering the classic BBC series from the late '80s called THE LOVEJOY MYSTERIES starring the magnificent Ian McShane in the titular role. According to the show, the provenance means everything in the world of antiquing. If you had one that was associated with an object you owned, you were in the money. If you faked a provenance for a copy of a valuable antique and you did a good job, you were also in the money. But in LOVEJOY, you also faced the real possibility of going to jail. If you had no provenance, you were out of luck, unless the buyer's expert was convinced your article was genuine. Lovejoy always walked that line very closely.

My coin is a Class 1 Short Cross penny, which means it was minted sometime during 1180-1189. The way to identify Class 1 is that King Henry's crown always has five pearls in it. (You can just barely count these on my coin.) Class 2, which was minted from 1189-91 and is very rare, can be identified by Henry's head having massive curls on both sides of his head. Class 3 through Class 8 were minted in successive years and have their own identifiable markings (some markings more consistent and, therefore, some identifications more accurate than others).

Following is an example of a Short Cross penny with most of its features intact (because it was stamped more on the center of the silver slug).

Silver Short Cross Coins stamped during the same era as my coin. These coins represent Class 1, the same as my penny. Note that the were minted in a different place and by a different moneyer: Willhem struck them in Northampton England. Copyright Old Currency Exchange blog.

This example shows a silver Short Cross penny minted in Northampton England by a moneyer named Willhem during the same period my coin was struck. It is the same basic stamp, although the lettering on the tail side identifies Willhelm instead of Hugh and Northampton instead of Lincoln. On this coin, which is of higher quality, the cartoon-y image of HENRICUS REX is very clear. It is actually quite an amusing image considering what a serious and warring king he was, even fighting with his own progeny over the kingdom.

The Short Cross penny was actually the second coin to be minted after Henry II came to power in 1154. The first coin, The Tealby penny was struck first shortly after Henry took the throne away from King Stephen (1135-1154). The Tealby penny was introduced to help restore public confidence in British currency. Thirty different mints were used to create the Tealby coinage. This proved to be too many production sites to keep up standard practices. The Tealby penny was an acceptable currency in the kingdom, but the coin itself was of low quality. So in 1180, the Short-cross penny was produced. It was a new style of coin whose quality was more stable than previous coins because fewer mints were allowed to operate and quality could be controlled more easily.

My coin is from the Gisors Hoard found in 1970 in France. It was one of only three Class 1 coins minted in Lincoln to be found there. Gisors France is a town in the Norman Vexin near where the kings of England and France would meet until the beginning of the 13th century. The hoard of coins were found in the court of a house built on the town's medieval wall. The English silver pennies were found in a leather bag at the bottom of what had been a hemp sack full of French copper coins. The copper coins had corroded into a mass of green metal that had melded with bits of hemp material from the bag. However, the leather bag, although degraded, had protected the collection of silver.

Example of Eleanor of Aquitaine silver coins. Unfortunately already sold! Copyright Civitas Galleries.

In researching my coin, hubby discovered that there is an Eleanor of Aquitaine coin as well. However, he was unable to find a specimen for sale. I was interested to know more, so I dove in. What I found was that the Eleanor coins are somewhat rare and are believed to have been struck around 1185 after Henry II had died and when Richard I, the Lionheart, ruled England. Eleanor would have been about 63 years old.

Maybe, someday, I'll hold an Eleanor of Aquitaine coin in my hand. Who knows? But for now I am very happy to hold a Henry II silver Short Cross penny. And my husband, of course!

References:

The British Coins in the Gisors (1970) Hoard

finds.org (UK) Guides: Medieval Coins

The Old Currency Exchange blog

North Shore Numismatic Society, The Short Cross Coinage of England

Wikipedia, The History of the English Penny