“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

Wind chills to 25 below, singing "Earth as hard as iron, water like a stone"-- navigating paths, driveways, and streets "brushed with brooms of steel" with cleats on my boots,-- and the darkness! It's so dark after Christmas is taken down. This is the  perfect reading weather.

Talk about a dramatic weather forecast! This is the latest from NOAA on the Upper Lynn Canal for the next few days. This also means today's ferry has been canceled, and there are no home basketball games this weekend, since the Petersburg boys and girls teams can't get here now. The wind has picked up on the beach, and it's not too cold yet, but there is definitely a change coming:

STORM WARNING
COASTAL WATERS FORECAST FOR SOUTHEAST ALASKA
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JUNEAU AK
357 AM AKST FRI JAN 6 2017

I do get teased, especially now that I am on the borough assembly, about that title Find the Good. I should have predicted that. But now the funny thing is that I've cultivated the habit of doing it a lot more than I used to. I mean, I meant to, but, you know what they say about well made plans and all.

Happy First Day of 2017! (The sunrise and sunset on the pond are only about two hours apart..)

I bought myself Mary Oliver's new essay collection for Christmas. Of one winter, she writes, "there was so much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing..."  Sound familiar? Then she writes of the light of faith or perhaps hope-- she's not sure what to call it-- that comes from that darkness, and even requires it, in a way, in order to be seen.

...my true love gave to me, four calling birds. 

Is anyone ever really ready for Christmas?( I mean this in big and little picture ways. ) I woke at five saying, "I have to bake four coffee cakes!" Then I counted heads for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and decided to wash the napkins. I didn't have enough eggs. I also do not have a gift for my husband, who says he has everything he needs and means it, which is why I love him. "Socks", I say to the dog who looks worried, as if I have decided to get us a Christmas kitten.

It really is lovely, in the rainy windy wet dark way that can be December in Haines, and walking on the beach yesterday made me feel "hale" like those young men in A Child's Christmas in Wales. I have a cold, so have been sleeping and reading more, in between manic bouts of holiday cheer.Yesterday, the four little granddaughters (ages 3-6) came by for a Christmas brunch. I served pancakes, raspberries, and whipped cream on my mother's good China with the Messiah playing. I also wore my mother's Pearls.

Saturday morning I filled a box of homemade cookies-by-the pound to get ahead with my "baking" and support the Salvation Army, walked in the snow to the last holiday craft bazaar at the ANB Hall, and found some nice soap and candles, bread and chocolate, and a maple leaf ornament,  ran home, ate a little lunch and snow-shoed in the still-falling snow ( perfect- soft and fluffy and 20 degrees) up to Lily Lake.