That annual autumnal vow to make good on the dark months by focusing on writing has worn itself out.

Restlessness starts winning over office-bound convictions this time of year. The stuff that most needs doing is inside at my desk, but my attention refuses to stay in the room. Some part of me wants to be outside, even when there’s no good reason to be out there. The vernal equinox pendulated in on gloom and snow and wind, and three days into “spring” what’s left is that last one: wind. Icy gusts from the north rattle the house, put the horses in an entirely justified snit, and tear veils of snow off the mountains. It’s nasty out. Better to be in, sheltered.

Sticky spring snow.

The windows offer a semblance of compromise, framing glimpses of out there without the bitter conditions. As I have for weeks now, I catch myself paused at the glass. I keep thinking about what might be said on the theme of looking out, but the words don’t come.

Actually, that’s not right. Words come, but they circle pointlessly, reminding me of the bits of windblown hay that fall into the sink and get swirled down the drain after I brush my hair.

Images present themselves, however, and for a few weeks I mark time with pictures taken from inside looking out. Unfocused inquietude isn’t unusual for me this time of year, as winter tilts slowly into spring. But eventually I realize what’s gnawing at me about looking out is the sense of cloistered safety. This feeling of irresolution isn’t something between the weather and me, it’s something between the world and me.

Peeping Buck.

This sensation emerges at times of crisis, which is to say it’s been near-constant these past few years, with periodic surges of intensity. In more ordinary times, I’m perfectly at peace with my place here, on this wind-rolled ridge in Colorado’s central Rockies. When Big Picture trouble erupts, though, my position of remove makes me more uneasy rather than less so. In the face of a catalog of woes—war in Ukraine; a December wildfire…or was that an urban firestorm?…outside of my former home town of Boulder; one million dead from COVID; news that Antarctic fall and Arctic spring have been ushered in with extreme high temperatures at either pole during the week of the equinox—it is impossible to rationalize away how spoiled I am.

Snow etched by grass.

In the end, such a listing only numbs the misery, piling chaos on disaster over tragedy and running them through with anxiety to create a meaningless jumble. A bit conceited, too, maybe, adopting the world’s problems as my own.

Back at a window, I pout. In relation to the big calamities, I might be distanced, but I’m not immune.

That’s the emotional core.

But I’m stuck on the logistical pivot, the capacity for action. I’m handicapped by my status as a puny human, one of billions sharing the planet just now. I can look out through the windows of news and media and see what’s happening to people far from the familiar landscapes of home. There are limits to what I can do, though, and what seems possible or appropriate doesn’t add up to substance. In the face of ongoing upheaval, writing a check to a worthy cause feels urgent but hardly adequate. I believe in the idea that small acts multiply, but the sum effects aren’t visible from the hall window.

I think about the groups of people I’ve read about in Ukraine, meeting an invading army by gathering in basements to weave camouflage tarps from fabric scraps and fishing nets.

In times like these, I’d like to think words count as action. I might be fooling myself, merely taking what is, for me, the easy way out. I’m not convinced, entirely, that weaving the scraps of my thoughts onto the sheltering net that is this place is what most needs doing, but I turn away from the window, and get back to doing it.

Early bluebird.