By Jan Pease
It’s time to catch our breath before the New Year
comes. This is the week between. I start noticing the change in light just
after New Year’s, because I’m really sensitive to Seasonal Affective Disorder. In the jungle that is our middle room, a tree
is yearning and stretching toward the south.
Four orchids are getting ready to burst into bloom, and the asparagus
fern is sending out long, long shoots.
One points south, and the confused one points west. I wonder if it is drawn toward our SAD
light. Anyway, they know that more light
will come our way, even if the cold is bitter.
Sometimes we make resolutions for the next year. Mine are pretty simple. I hope that I will be kind.
I hope to encourage rather than complain. I will try to be generous with my time and
resources. I will try to be gentle with
myself. I will work harder at being
healthy.
Two gentle picture
books come to my mind when I think about this time of year. One is “Stranger in the Woods” by Carl R.
Sams and Jean Stoick. Mr. Sams and Ms.
Stoick set up a snowman in the woods,
took stunning photographs of wildlife interacting with it, and turned it all
into a lovely picture book. Their books have won more than 80 awards for their
books. I recommend that you sit in a cozy
chair with a cup of something warm to drink, preferably with a child or cat in
your lap, and absorb the beauty of these photographs.
Another book, “The Christmas Wish,” by Lori Evert and Per Breiehagen, has stunning photographs of their
4 year old daughter Anja wearing traditional Norwegian clothing and Sami
reindeer shoes, interacting with Arctic animals. They have since developed a line of “Wish”
books and products, but this first book is simply amazing. I believe its title in Norway was “The
Christmas Dream.”
There is just something magical about snowy woods. One of my favorite parenting memories is of
taking our daughter and two of her friends out to Youngstrom Woods during a
rare January thaw. The girls were sure
they were lost, but I could always hear them.
The stillness of the woods was breathtaking, even with the giggling
girls traipsing through the snow.
