Winter's Day Update -- A Winter Hermit's Favorite Writers

This year is almost over. Actually, it pretty much ended on the December 21st -- winter solstice -- because that day is an actual physical event that separates our planetary trip away from the sun with the tipping point for the return to a closer and warmer distance (not too close please!). But the calendar has to give us or 365 days and that means a few extra thrown in after the solstice just to keep things tidy. So January 1st is the day of the new calendar year. I can go with that but I started easing back toward summer nine days ago. It cannot come soon enough.

We're due another snowstorm: a doozy of deep cold and numerous inches of white stuff. The storm is late, not following NOAA's instructions at all. It should have been here late last night and greeted us in the first light of a chilly morning. As I write it is nearly noon and the unexpected morning sunlight is beginning to fade behind high, very wintry-looking clouds sneaking in from the north. I expect to be clearing snow tomorrow morning.

I finished my first reading of Stephen Batchelor's latest book Confession of a Buddhist Atheist yesterday. As usual he has left me with a lot to think about -- good things by my lights. I have re-read his Buddhism without Beliefs at least four times. I'm not Buddhist and am not swayed to becoming one; conversion is not the goal of these books. Batchelor has interpreted the core of this ancient faith into an entirely secular, this-world focused prescription for living better. He makes the case in both books that this approach was likely the intent of the Buddha (Siddarttha Gotama), arguing from the strength of extensive research and personal experience that religious trappings attached to Buddhism after his death have obscured powerful, non-theistic insights about the reality of the human condition and how to use that knowledge to live more focused, ethical and meaningful lives. For an agnostic like me, the message has a powerful appeal. As I said, I'm only on my first reading of this latest book.  More to come on this.

Batchelor has been and will remain on the list of my favorite authors. These include William and Ariel Durant, Robert Fulghum, and Joseph Wood Krutch. The Durant's left us a tour-de-force of philosophy and history in their multi-volume works. Robert Fulghum -- in my very particular view -- carries on their tradition by offering day-to-day commentary laced with subtle and finely honed personal philosophy that nicely compliments their headier fare. Mr. Krutch, a man of letters turned amateur naturalist, deftly weaves the thread of philosophy and natural science into a loving and gentle commentary on the natural world, and our place within it. All fine reading. I am in debt to these fine and accomplished intellectuals for all that they have given to me and, of course the larger audience of those concerned with mankind's relationship with itself and the world of which it is an indisputable part.

Reading and thinking with the help of these authors is helping me flourish intellectually through these long and often intense winters. In this small way, I consider myself a lucky man. Winter's are hard on Barrett Ridge. It is not an easy place in which to thrive.

Winter's Day Update

It's a dreary Tuesday in between cold fronts. The is some desultory melting underway, but nothing that will significantly reduce the snow pack. What we get in these lulls is some settling, hardening, and general compacting that forms a good hard base for the next snowfall. There's nothing inspiring, or particularly noteworthy about days like this one. Winters, even hard ones, are full of the kinds of slow days that alternate between the relaxing and the stultifyingly boring. This one's in-between extremes.

The best one can do in this weather is take the dog out for exercise then structure the rest of the day around household chores, reading, and hopefully getting a few decent words committed to posterity. One can also make some plans. Our son Nick, recently discharged from the air force and headed for college at the University of Wyoming (UWyo) will join us here at Moose Landing tomorrow for a last minute final gathering of belongings and some much appreciated home cooking. We've more or less committed to harvesting a small tree from the nearby forest tomorrow so we can decorate it while he's here. We've also arranged to visit my mother  in Cheyenne at the end of this week so Nick can have a few hours with her before jetting off to England to be with his wife, Elissa, who's in the middle of her last year of undergraduate studies at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. Suzy and I will return on to Cheyenne Christmas day for a holiday meal and a more extended visit.

What this means is that aside from Nick's visit and our brief forays to Cheyenne, we'll be mostly alone on the mountain this holiday season. Personally, I'm hoping for most of the days to remain uneventful weather-wise. Blizzards, when they come, can be harrowing. Dreary isn't all that bad.

12-10-10: First Post

"If you can fish, fish. If you can sing, sing. If you can fight, fight. Determine what you can do. And do that."   Epictetus (as paraphrased by Robert Fuhlgum in What on Earth Have I Done ?)

   In keeping with the advice of the above mentioned, but long dead Stoic, I am taking this opportunity to begin my very own blog and attempt to do in it what I like to do best -- write.   For subject matter I intend to draw from the rather unusual lifestyle my wife and I have crafted;  we live year round at 8700 ft in a much remodeled home built in the 1930's by a Swedish logger in Ryan Park Wyoming.  Whenever we can -- weather permitting -- we also sail a trailerable 26 foot sailboat primarily on Alcova Reservoir near Casper Wyoming.   When not battling snow in Ryan Park, or too much wind at the reservoir, I work at an on-again, off-again writing life.    I've published a short story, am shopping around and revising a crime-fiction novel, and keep my sanity through daily journal entries that often grow into personal essays or poetry.     All of what happens here and on the lake constitutes content for News from Moose Crossing.

(About that moose thing.  Yes, we have a sizable population of moose in Ryan Park and they frequently pass right in front of the window to my writing office -- hence the name of both our property and this nascent blog.)