February 16, 2023 — We had several days of perfect sun starting Sunday. In the afternoon, I stripped down to just some shorts and sat out in a protected nook on our porch. Steph had taken Hawthorn to a ski race and Colebrook was at an SAT test prep class. I was supposed to be readying the house for a small Super Bowl gathering, but instead I felt the sun rays penetrate into my winter-white skin while reading a new book about the local northern Michigan Ojibwa who changed the course of our American history.
It was just as beautiful on Monday, but I didn’t get a chance to enjoy the sun. That night I cranked up the sauna and Steph and I sat in the steamy heat. She wasn’t feeling 100%, so she called it quits after the first session. I walked down our dock alone, stepped into the water with ice surrounding me and plunged. I held for a good 10 seconds and then, I blasted up the ladder and I stood on the icy wood planks enjoying the five alarm adrenaline running through my body as it sends my core heat to warm my frozen skin.
Something about a cold dip stretches out a moment in time and intensifies the senses. I felt the ice with its bluish glow. I felt the soft eyes of silent onlookers in the woods. But mostly, I felt the stars — each of the brilliant orbs sending me a morsel of power or magic or medicine. Certainly, one of those stars was my Momma, and her starlight hugged me with comfort.
