A Study in Contrasts

I love Victoria magazine. I was sorely disappointed when the magazine went defunct a few years ago and was elated when it came back into publication last year.

For me, it is pure escapism. It pictures and describes life on a different plane from my experience. It's like a sci-fi/fantasy epic - escape into another dimension.

In the January/February issue, Catherine Calvert, this year's writer-in-residence at Victoria, wrote an essay entitled "January Musings." In this essay, she wrote things like, "The quiet in the house echoes the quiet outside..." and "...January is a stretch of peace when one lives in the moment, forced by weather and whim to sit still..."

Huh?

I missed that particular January.

My whim may tell me to sit still but my kids' basketball schedule, music lessons, play dates, birthday parties, my husband's meeting schedule, my church's event schedule, and my own activities pull me out of anything close to a semi-recumbent position.

But that's okay. Victoria grants me a glimpse into another life and I take a voyeur's pleasure in it. Some day I'll write blog entries about how I sat and watched the wood fill up with snow, how I traced faint bird tracks across the drifts, and how the crackling fire was my one companion.

And then I'll wish for noise and chaos and laughter and running feet on the stairs. Well, at least a little bit.

"Winter...is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour." -John Boswell

"All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them." -Erma Bombeck