Ben & Jen Shepard

Hockey.  I wasn’t really all that into it until the Buffalo Sabres made it into the 2006-2007 playoffs and came agonizingly close to winning the Stanley Cup.  Even though it was the Ottawa Senators who finally dashed our championship hopes to icy pieces in a 4-1 loss, I had caught the fever.  Hockey had the best of everything in mainstream sports – the action was fast, the tables could be turned in seconds, and the fans were stubbornly devoted to the home team.  Star Sabres players could frequently be seen have a pre-game meal at Chef’s, one of Buffalo’s famous Italian restaurants.  They were celebrities, but they were eating spaghetti just like everybody else.

One of these days Ben and I will get to a Sabres game.  It’s tough to get tickets and not cheap.  In the meantime, however, we enjoyed a trip to Ben’s hometown to watch the Syracuse Crunch take on the Rochester Americans.  Now, Rochester used to be the Sabres’ farm team until recently.   I don’t know that I could have rooted against Rochester in good conscience had that still been the case.  But it turned out to be a good thing that it wasn’t, because the Crunch crunched Rochester 4-1.  Sweet.

Finally, after weeks of gray skies, Buffalo saw a glorious day of bright streaming sunlight.  And finally, after days of succumbing to those dark skies, I felt something inside of me lift its head and squint toward the light.  I stood in the warm sun on my way in from the car, heavy bags hanging from my shoulder and arms full, but it didn’t matter.  The heat  seemed to revive me.  I forced my feet to move toward the front door, but as soon as the bags were dropped in the hallway they took me back to the light like a magnet.  As I stood there, soaking it in, the thought flitted through my mind.  “I am a solar panel.”  I laughed for the first time in days.  It was the same factual, vapid monotone that Edward Norton narrates in Fight Club, “I am Jack’s raging bile duct.”

This happens to me every year.  Go long enough without the bright golden light of the sun, without feeling the warmth of it on your face and the way it makes the world seem vividly alive, then hibernation becomes the best possible option.  There was only one year that I didn’t feel this sort of grieving, and that was when I met Ben.  He was the sun that winter.

Today is officially the first day of spring, although I find it a little empty of any excitement.  Today, like yesterday, I wrapped my scarf and coat around me to brace myself against the chill.  I thought seriously about wearing a hat.  No, spring is here when the sun tells me it is here.  When I can stand outside and not shiver.   When, like the daffodills, I can make a hopeful attempt to rise from the frozen, snow covered ground and be warmed through.  When driving requires sunglasses.  When the powerful and delicate joy of life returns to bring color to the world and contentment to my spirit.

By now you should know that our cats are a little crazy.  They do weird things that we have mostly come to accept as part of the adventures of living with them.  Most antics don’t phase us anymore.  Recently, though, when Romeo began obsessing over the bottom cupboard beneath the sink, we took notice.  It wasn’t that he was obnoxiously flamboyant about it.  In fact, it was because he was so quietly dedicated to this new pastime that we noticed.  He’d just sit there staring at the closed door, occasionally pawing it open and cautiously sticking his head in.  If we were washing dishes or trying to prepare a meal it was supremely inconvenient.  We’d slide him out of the way and go about our business and he’d stealthily slide right back when we weren’t paying attention, slipping between our feet to stare at the door again.  Sometimes he’d actually climb all the way inside and the door would swing shut behind him.  He’d stay in there for long stretches and the house would get eerily un-rambunctious.  We’re just not used to that sort of calm.

As it turns out, my cat is no dummy.  He wasn’t trying to raid the trash (which he has been known to do) or sniff too much Windex.  No, my cat smelled a rat.  Actually, it was a mouse.  Well….mice.

When he wouldn’t desist with the cupboard obsession, we finally investigated and to our severe dismay found copious amounts of  mouse turds littering the floor.  We gawked.  Romeo just stared at us disaffectingly.  I could almost hear him, “Finally get there, Sherlock?”

Not wanting to be inhumane and get the nasty mouse traps that do some serious disfigurement in the process of “discouraging” the rodents to return, we decided leave the cupboard doors wide open and let the cats police the area.  (If the mice have to be savagely killed, I’d rather nature do it and not bear the responsibility – at least this is what I tell myself.)  So Romeo stood sentry, hunched over the hole in the back of the cupboard and Orange waited just outside the door as backup.  We’re not sure they saw any action overnight, since there was no evidence of a battle.  However, Romeo did attempt to climb the shower curtain rather violently in the early a.m. hours.  So either he was chasing a mouse (oh, I hope not around my house!) or….that crafty beast saw this as the perfect opportunity to do some damage and have a good alabai.  Wouldn’t put it past him.

This sounds like a good afternoon to me: you make your favorite hot beverage, you fluff the pillows on the couch, curl up and pull the softest blanket you have up around your chin.  You sip and savor the warmth and all that wonderful comfort.  And then you open the cover of a really good book and dive in.  You plunge into the pages of a great story and lose yourself in vivid characters and exciting new places.

There are several books that I have enjoyed this way.  Saturdays were spent holed up indoors and evenings after work required dinner and a book instead of dinner and a movie.  These were the books I just could not put down until it was well past bedtime and my eyes refused to stay in focus long enough to catch another word.  I’ll tell you about them sporadically, but for now, let’s start with this one.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This is a huge book, but I was easily caught up in the Arthurian legend that spanned the lifetimes of several generations of characters.  (This was a blessing since I read most of it on a 9-hour-long flight to Hawaii.)  I love stories that follow a character throughout their life so they begin to feel like an old friend.  The story focuses on Morgaine (Morgan La Fey) of Avalon, a priestess in a lifelong battle to save her fading matriarchal Celtic culture as Christianity’s patriarchal influence spreads over Great Britain.  As King Arthur’s sister, Morgaine fights to remind him of his own heritage in the old ways, but Arthur’s love for his Queen, Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), a devout follower of the new religion, and his desire to make her happy fuel his every decision. Gwenhwyfar, unable to produce and heir or be with her true love, Lancelet, becomes increasingly depressed and fanatical about her religion, pushing Arthur to completely abandon the old pagan culture.  The battle between Avalon and Camelot culminates in the birth and rise to power of Mordred, bastard son of King Arthur and Morgaine, conceived during a pagan ritual where neither knew who the other was.   Mordred is bent on reinstating the power of Avalon no matter what the cost and in the final battle, his armies line the field to face his father’s.  The story is captivating with rich detail of the inner lives of each character.  Although women are often marginalized in Camelot, it is in fact the women in this story who, from behind the scenes, shape the history of Avalon, Camelot and Great Britain.  This book can be intimidating because it is so long, and you might need a dictionary now and then, but I really enjoyed it.  It’s one of those books I will probably pick up and read again some day.