You Don't Need To Be A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows

25 below today with the chilling winds. Winter has arrived in coastal Maine.

I have been thinking about my grandmother a good deal lately, and those two sentences brought her once more to the foreground of memory.

A calendar hung next to my grandmother’s chair at the kitchen table. Each morning one of the first things she did was to step outside to check the weather and read the thermometer. She would note the information on the calendar, along with other important facts. Things like … the ice was out of the pond. Saw first robin of the year. Or Dad died this day XX years ago. It was a colorfully consistent measure of the day and the passing of seasons and years.

My calendar travels with me. Each evening one of the last things that I do is to check my schedule for the coming day. My calendar measures appointments and mileage. It is an unremarkable, yet consistent, measure of the passing of my days.

I made a decision this week to change my calendar to one more like gram's. Although I’ve been planning a change in my life for a couple years now, I have moved the change date significantly forward. On July 1, my calendar will hang on the wall next to my cabin window. I will measure my days in sunrises, sprouting seeds, and songbirds.

I see my grandmother smiling.