A New Day

By Carrie Jacobson

This day dawned bright and sharp, the light fragile and pink, the field white with frost. The beauty of the morning startled me, woke me up, and I hurried to get my easel and paints, and then painted, standing there in the yard in my pajamas and a sweatshirt.

I hope that your days and your year dawn with such beauty and grace and power.

Silver Beach

By Carrie Jacobson

This, then, is winter in Virginia.

It is gray. Dark. Rainy. Raw.

But it is not snowy.

It is not icy.

I am not shoveling.

I am not skidding.

I am not warming up the car for half an hour, and then leaving home an hour early, seeking routes that have no hills. I am not scraping windshields, losing gloves, finding frozen sodas on the floor, worrying about ice-melter and the back steps and the dogs’ paws.

For decades, I loved winter, and I loved the snow. I loved the way white outlined everything, cleaned it all, purified it. I loved the howling blast of a blizzard and the deep quiet of a gentle snow. I loved the sharp air of winter, how the coldest days would freeze the inside of your nose, and bring tears to your eyes. I loved the brilliance of the sun on the snow, and the way it caught the moonlight, making night look like some kind of shadowed day.

I loved skiing, and hiking in the snow and, later, painting it.

But for all that, I don’t miss it. Winter has been painless, here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It has been gentle, and soft, and gray.

And if I want real winter, I know where to find it.

Here's my painting in the landscape

December in Virginia

By Carrie Jacobson
Some things I’ve been thinking about:

It’s interesting how much difference snow makes in the feeling of Christmas. You can have all the lights in the world, but without snow, it just doesn’t feel quite like the holiday.

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When did Dec. 5 become a time for “last-minute shopping?” (I heard several ads on that day reaching out to last-minute shoppers).

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When did the day after Halloween become the day it is OK to start decorating and talking about Christmas? I remember being appalled at ads that came out before Thanksgiving.

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I heard someone on TV say that it was a nice idea to bring a gift card as a hostess present. I beg to differ. Why not just hand the hostess a $10 bill?

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On the other hand, the kids all want gift cards. I’m happy to comply, in a way, but I have realized, in my compliance, that for me, part of the whole thing really is the shopping. The looking, the seeking, the thrill of finding something that might be perfect, and then that funny thing you do when you imagine the person receiving the gift, and see his or her expression, and then you know whether to buy it or put it back. At least, I do that.

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I wanted a guest soap for the bathroom, and went into Bathworks in our downtrodden local mall, and asked the woman in there for soap.

“Oh,” she said, “we have lots of soap,” and she gestured at shelf after shelf after shelf of liquid soap.

“No,” I said. “Bar soap.”

“What’s that?” she said.

I kid you not.

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P.S. If you have not already finished your last-minute shopping, why not consider buying a piece of art from a local artist? The Wallkill River School Gallery has a lovely show on right now with local art, and of course, you can always reach people like me through the internet. Email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you want to find out more about the painting at the top of this post. Or check out my website – jacobson-arts.com, or my own blog, The Accidental Artist.