We have hit the week of cold. Right now, with the sun shining, I'm certain it is below zero (or for those of you using the Celsius scale, -19), with a howling wind. I can see the snow blowing off my neighbor's roof and into our yard.

Our yard, which Jane and I describe as the nicest rooms in the apartment, are snowed in. They are still the most beautiful rooms in the apartment. Brian left his bicycle locked to a post in the yard and when I last looked, about two minutes ago, the snow was as deep as the hubs. It is an irritant when I'm out there with the new electric snow shovel. But it is a strange thing of beauty from my normal vantage point, behind the curtain wall on the porch.

There can be no doubt, either, that the curtain wall is worth every penny spent.

My car, the 2000 Silhouette van, is also snowed in, caught up to the hubs in the snow. I put a luggage hauler on it to pick my brother up, that was two weeks ago. Together, with the snow, I can see the van and it's huge block of snow tower into the sky above the other cars.

Ceili returns to school next Tuesday. I'm continuing to progress on my 30/30 challenge. Though there hasn't been much traction in the last few days.

Ceili and I used the excuse of the terrible weather to undertake yet another tradition of the winter. We usually associate it with January, rather than Christmas, but the whole thing is about renewal of the spirit, of how death is conquered and sacrifices made for the greater good. So, we traipsed off, in the bitter cold yesterday, to take on the Chicago Transit Authority and the Botanical Garden.

The Chicago Conservatory was designed by Jens Jenson, the famed architect and opened 101 years ago. For as many years as we've lived in Chicago it has been the center of at least one winter trip. You arrive in a frozen world of snow and ice. The breath floating about in whispers. Inside, you remove your coat and take in the green warmth and humidity.

What a great break from winter.

In the past two or perhaps three visits I've come to appreciate a significant difference between the way Ceili perceives the world and the way I do. I'll be staring at the iron work, watching the light spill through the leaves and onto the water. I'll notice how from a certain spot Jenson allowed you to see across an entire room, to take in the water, the trees and how the skylights provide a grey background. You forget where you are, it is transcendent.

Ceili will point at something, sometimes literally under my nose, and expound on that little thing. A flower or a stem. She'll wander under a canopy and see a single flower dangle there, above our heads. She is more into the details, while I'm taking in the forest.

I force myself to try to appreciate the world as she sees it. Wow, it is really different. This visit is a reminder to me of the wonder of having raised this person. Here is a fundamental area of difference between us. She sees details and I take in the depth. Ying and Yang.

Yesterday, as we entered the new four elements display, she took out a sketch pad to draw something she saw. I sat down and allowed the visit to wash over me. I refer to it as gorking the moment. I just want to undertake to allow my senses to take everything in, without attempting to filter them or categorize them, so that later I can try to recreate the moment when I write.
As adults we lose some of the perspective of wonder. This is one of the moments in the year when I force myself to adopt another's view or to simply abandon that adult perspective. This is truly a thing of great wonder. Jenson was a genius.

So, I watched as an older man, holding the brim of his baseball hat, wandered through. He looked surprised and in a hurry. He wasn't sure what the two of us were doing, sitting a few feet apart, and actually out of sight of each other, but he didn't want to intrude. Some mothers were playing in a play area just around the corner, with their children. They were discussing insurance of all things. I don't think they ever even realized we were there listening.

The light from a pond, something about the size of what we've discussed putting into the backyard, shown up from beneath the surface. The streaks were sharply delineated and formed a rough cross while the light itself broke through the surface to underlite a huge leaf. There were smells of wet clean dirt from the mist, sounds of water falling from somewhere. The rock below moved a bit. It wasn't bolted down. Eventually I turned away from the children and the water and concentrated on a relatively blank cement wall. The paint was peeling and some vines were reaching for it. Of course, once Ceili showed up, she immediately noticed something that had eluded me, a single plant had flowered on this concrete object.

“It's wet,” she said. I asked her if it was sweet. She tasted the pollen and said it was very sweet.

Then I laughed and said it was poisonous too.

And in those moments, the ending for the 30/30 hit me. It will be sad, not triumphant. First clue to what is a sports story.

I need to figure a way to put a pond in the yard. It is a tight fit, but Ceili loves Koi, loves to draw them and I think she needs that to “own” the yard. I think, too, that I need it. I think having this thing around could be something that allows me to draw on my creativity too. I think I'll encourage spiders to live there too. There is something about seeing the silk catch the light that intrigues me.