Twilight

n the middle of July, we never expect a snowfall, so why do leave the house each dark January morning and raise our noses in the hope of the slightest whiff of damp, green earth?  The snow creaks under our boots and the wind takes our breath and we could be on the edge of the world instead of our block as all around us is encased in a hard white shell. The garden grows slumbering beasts reclining in mysterious mounds under the snow, shaped round the skeleton of bushes and the scaffolding of dried stems.  The frost turns the stems of the hardy lavender by the front door into a wild lion’s man peeking out through icebergs of shoveled snow, tinged blue with ice melt .Navigating the trek from curb to sidewalk requires the skills of mountaineers and walking the dogs is an ice dance worthy of a sequined bespangled costume and a gold medal round my neck.

 

On return in the evening, I am lonely as soon as I turn the lock in the door. The dogs barrel in ahead, oblivious to the emptiness that greets us, the darkened rooms, the stilled music, the quiet phone, the silent shower.  There are no coats but mine on the newel post and backpacks to jump over on the way to the kitchen. But it is impossible to feel maudlin when 170 pounds of combined canine are furiously intent on seeing me take off  my coat, put down my bag and packages, and magically make their bowls fill up.

 

As soon as I bend down to pick the metal bowls up off the kitchen floor, the tails begin wagging and circling me, and when I go down the two steps to the pantry door, they stop on the top step, tails furiously wagging. When I come back out the magic food door, the mama is waiting for me with as much anticipation as if I had a prime rib in my hands. Her son has already run to the kitchen and is sitting at attention by his spot.  My hard stare at the mama puts her into the sit position and my raised hand cautions both to wait.  I am too soft to make their wait more than twenty seconds at night; the still but quivering tails, the open mouths, and the eyes twitching and darting between my face and the bowl, the face and my bowl make me laugh and I give the “eat” command and they both dive in and eat, a process that is over before I can open the refrigerator to see what our own meal will be.

 

The kitchen fills up with dogs at my feet and by the time I get olive oil and garlic sautéing in a cast iron pan, I’ve forgotten to be lonely, and who could be with two dogs watching every move I make lest they miss a scrap of cheese or a crumb of bread hit the floor without their notice? We serve ourselves individually from a soup pot or pasta bowl and read the newspaper while we eat. We do not linger as the dining room tends to be drafty and the living room fire involves dogs drooling over our legs and following each bite from plate to mouth with their eyes.

 

I light my own match against the darkness with fir-scented candles and a new teapot with a built-in infuser and smoky Earl Gray leaves that turn the water as dark as mahogany. I’m not afraid of the dark from inside the house, the rose chintz drapes drawn across the front windows and the chimney moaning in the wind. Through the upstairs windows, we marvel at the dogs’ tracks across the backyard, the convoluted paths criss-crossing in wild abandon, punctuated with holes dug in a frenzy to get at the snow monsters, the dirt and sod revealed by manic paws and scattered across the now sullied snow.

 

I plug in the white lights that sparkle across my studio windows and listen to a book on tape while I paint brilliant gouache onto thick, mottled watercolor paper. Soon Valentine hearts are scattered across the table and my own heart is beating slowly, held in check by the cadence of the narrator speaking to me in beautiful phrases and I get lost in story.  My scissors snip around heart shapes, dropping flakes of white paper across the Kraft paper covering my worktable. Soon it is littered  with red hearts and paper snow and I am ready for bed, for the warmth of the electric blanket,  for a final cup of tea, for Mr. Pom’s shoulders to rub up against in bed, and gratitude for the furnace rumbling in the basement and the snores of the dogs in their crates.