FROST ON WINDOWS

Where has January gone? I know it has been here. Temperatures have been below zero and the snow squeaks. On those rare mornings when we can have coffee in bed, we play the game of what do you see in the frost pictures that form on the windows. Yesterday...it was the profile of an Indian or maybe a Pharoah. And I awoke to the smell of freshly baking bread...the aroma of my Grandmother who baked rolls to sell during the depression prior to World War 2. I'm fascinated by the smells of things that aren't there...at least not to anyone else. Where do they come from? I laid in the warmth of my bed and breathed in the heavenly smell that had to be coming from "the other side" because no bread was baking in my oven. Why today? Why baking bread? What might my grandmother have to say to me? Is it like the frost pictures on the window? Some certain clash of temperatures on a window that opens between worlds? Is that window like a membrane between realities? And does it thin out like like a cervix ready to bring a life into the world? Does it become thin when a soul is getting ready to leave the world? My Mom had a bout with pneumonia recently and she is currently having a stay at a rehab hospital. She is coming around well and she is such a good sport although the transitions into the hospital, then transfer to the rehab and the not being in her own familiar surroundings has a confusing effect on her. She has certainly learned to go with the flow during her years as an octogenarian. There is no evidence that she is hovering on the threshold as yet. But the smell of baking bread announcing my Grandmother's nearness made me wonder...and feel some anxiety about my mother's state of health. It happened the same morning as my owl dream. I dreamed...prior to the smell memory/presence...that I was hunting for my binoculars because right out in front of my house, a Great Grey Owl was performing flight acrobatics and I was all excited...in a downright tizzy. There is an old Indian belief that hearing an owl or seeing an owl can indicate the loss of one you hold dear. Owl feathers were not used as prayer feathers because they were associated with death and the mysteries of darkness. So...there is a sense that invisible reality is knock knock knocking at my window and trying to tell me something...something that has no evidence in this 3 dimensional reality. I sense and feel the messages. I hush myself to better listen. My brain insists that I'm hallucinating or making farfetched connections because there is no logic behind what I sense and feel. I am aware that I have spent my entire life shushing up my sensory perceptions that don't find validation from my current reality or from other people...but look how all the components worked together to create a state of alert in my heart. I am now hyper vigilant to Mom's health status and anticipate a trip to Salem soon...even if just to bring her my aroma...so that she knows I am nearby like Gram was to me today. I need to go peak at her through the window...and then hug her with the fragrance of my love for her. I hope I smell like snow on Balsalms...or she can see me like frost pictures on the windows.