1.17.2008

On the Labor of Heat

The drift of perfect snowflakes outside the window distracts me. Falling thick and languid by the thousands, they look soft enough to fill a pillow, but I'm too old and know better.

The house is still except for the intermittent rush of heat from our furnace, a loud and constant sound when it roars after giving preliminary creaks and clicks. It's strange to feel warmth pour through metal slats and have no idea how a fire was kindled to produce it, if in fact it was produced by a flame and not some baffling miasma of gas and magic.

Growing up, I rode the wood wagon with my family into the Big Woods to load it full of what would warm our limbs in the night. Sometimes in the dead of winter, oftentimes cheerful, sometimes surly, we would snack on saltine crackers and apples and take swigs from a milk jug filled with well-water, chilled so by the temperature outdoors that it seared our throats as it swooshed down. In autumn, the smell of leaves and diesel fuel and the growl and whine of the chainsaw were symbols of heat. In spring, we'd shed the wool hats and, with equal amounts of excitement and dread, face the prospect of getting stuck in the mud as the wagon slid and lurched behind the John Deere.

On school days, after we stepped off the bus and into the house, Mom would often greet us with cookies and the charge to bring in three loads of wood before supper. What constitutes a load? This question occupied wasteful amounts of energy and arguments as we trudged a path from wood stack to basement door with a wheelbarrow or sled or armful of wood, depending on the depth of snow. We'd fight to defend our honor or to assault another's-- Yes, it was a full armload!-- before piling back into the house to shake off the snow and make peace.

Even though Dad tended the chainsaw, older brothers split the majority of wood, and Mom fed the fire all the night long, I knew where that heat came from. And just now, sitting down to write a blog post, the sound of the mysterious gas furnace turned me entirely from the post I wanted to write into this soliloquy on heat. To end all things, I just heard a thump and Susannah's steps above my head, so this is what you get.

Thank you, Lord, for warm bones and snow falling and, most of all, for the footfalls of children to keep me new.


7 comments:

  1. I loved reading your tale of gathering wood, it took me back to my "little house in the big woods" days :) I never had those same experiences, but they sound so wonderful to me! I almost didn't check your blog this am, since I check it daily and it has been a while, but I am so glad I did! Comments are scattered here and there, but one thing you didn't talk about is...YOU! How are YOU feeling??? :)

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  2. Ha! Yes! Begging doesn't work, pleading doesn't working, crying doesn't work, but, apparently, threatening does. :D Don't you feel at least a little guilty about encouraging bad behaviour, Abby?

    (Kinda says something about you that you'd rather post a million pictures than clean your house, doesn't it? Or at least more than you'd rather have all your friends drop by and see your uncleaned house?)

    In more seriousness, yes, I agree with Elizabeth. I'm glad to see your children are all healthy and happy, but how are you?

    (And if you don't feel like discussing that on a public blog, you owe me a letter. Actually, I'm pretty sure you owe me a letter in any case! ;)

    Very good to hear from you again!

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  3. Since I was happily met with some comments from Abigail, I knew I ought to expect a new update at Shotsnaps, and sure enough! here is it! It is good to hear from you-here and there and EVERYWHERE. ;-)

    I WISH I could have warm toes. We have the heat on only in the basement and in the bedrooms at night. So it goes when you see the heatbill at a mansion-house. So, we freeze in order to live through a heating bill. FUnny, we pay mounds of bills and still suffer frostbite... :-)

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  4. Elizabeth,
    I'm feeling pretty good! I'm still really fatigued some days, but I think that's due to rotten, wintertime eating habits and a life completely devoid of physical movement more than anything. On all other fronts, all is well! I haven't set up my first midwife appointment yet, so after that, we'll all know for certain that I need to eat carrots instead of candy.

    Titi,
    In my defense, I had already loaded all the pictures a few days before you left your comment; I just hadn't had time to add text yet.

    And, no, I won't usually talk on my blog about much other than the girls and my love of candy, and, yes, your letter is so overdue that I'd have to write a novel to make up for the late date. What say you to February bi-weekly or once-monthly gatherings? Sew/knit/eat candy?!?

    Rebecca,
    I feel for you.

    We turn the heat down to 60 at nights, and on bitter days, the furnace doesn't help in any room other than the living room because the wind shoots in through the windows, but our heat is included in the rent! This has been a HUGE blessing. We used to wear hats, mittens, and sometimes coats in Depew, and remember Greene? Your present situation reminds me of our short time there. Yes, living in the circa-1850 mansion for a year was glorious! In the winter, though, our savings from me teaching school was completely wiped out with $750.00 a month heating bills, we were STILL freezing cold, and the pipes STILL frequently froze. It was a nightmare, and just thinking of it makes me so very glad to be where we are right now.

    Hang in there! Spring will come. It must!

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  5. Savings.

    WERE.

    Who taught school? Me? HA!

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  6. i love it. grumbling over loads of wood. so funny. something that i think we can all relate to, even in our differnt spheres.

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  7. Hey, skimping on your load was a SERIOUS misdeed!!!!! Surely, everyone can see that...

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