When I was five years old we moved from Albakirkee, New Mexico (thank heavens I can finally spell it) to Maryland. We lived there until I was ten. And in all of that time I never got tired of getting lost and muddy in the forest behind our house. The forest has since been subdivided, which makes me weep openly. But back then? It was The Hood's hood, Sherwood. As well as the battlefield at Bunker Hill, the home of Tarzan and Jane, the secret operative hideout for agents Double-Oh-Janiel and Triple-Oh-Cappy, and it hid a cottage built out of gingerbread by a psychotic old shut-in. Also, there were loads of vines slung between trees in which one could lie and pretend to be living as Robinson Crusoe on a desert Island whose forest was so thick you couldn't see it for the trees.
I loved that place. Most of all I loved watching it change from a lushly carpeted, tangled and brambled-up jungle, filled with deer and robins, chickadees, blue jays, oriols, and mocking birds, as well as rabbits, foxes, and on one occasion, a bob-cat—to a spare and sere, wind-whipped, snow and ice covered stand of lonely sleeping dryads. You could hear and smell the change as everything got echo-y in a sort of pillow-muted way, and the neighborhood kids shouting to each other sounded more isolated and cold. It was dramatic and a little sad. But at the same time, the cold of the winter woods always felt to me like a brief regathering for the burst of life in spring. Like a bit of a nap.
That lovely frozen-branches-in-the-wind feeling comes back to me every December 26th. The day after the festivities have finally peaked and fever-pitched, and everything slides back down into a content, quiet, warmth on the inside looking at the cold without. I've always wanted to bottle those smells and sounds and feelings and give them to those I love the day after Christmas.
This year I can. Because I found this. I hope you enjoy it. And while you are watching, I hope you can smell and feel and see what I grew up with in Maryland. And that it makes your season cozy.
Happy Winter My Friends!
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