Hello! Today is the beginning of One Minnesota Crone, a new blog aimed at women over 50 and anyone else who cares to come along for the ride.

I’m excited to begin posting here at One Minnesota Crone and say goodbye to One Minnesota Writer, the blog I ran for over a decade. If you’ve already read my Welcome page on this site, you know that this change was a long time coming.

And what will One Minnesota Crone offer you?

One Minnesota Crone will offer you space to celebrate the creativity that unfolds in so many of us when we are older. Having lived on this earth for a long time allows for perspective. It allows for the understanding that points of view can change, more than one path can be traveled, new trails can be blazed. Identities can shift. We can choose to have fun while still contributing to this world.

Expect to see posts once every week or two. One Minnesota Crone is a refuge when our angry and on-fire world is too much. Come here for calm. For joy. For ideas. Sometimes I’ll share photos of whatever brings me joy, like learning to pour paint and make something beautiful, poetry or novels that beg to be read, quiet places that soothe everything. Sometimes I’ll share what I’m cooking, because cooking is its own zen space in my house. Sometimes I’ll share a gorgeous hike that will make your feet itch to hit the trail. There are so many ways to find a refuge.

And I’m not the only one with things to share. If you identify as a woman over 50 and you would like to share something here – your artwork, your published work, something you think is important for this community – contact me. Let’s see what we can work out.

Which, of course, leads me to what I can share with you today. As we close out 2021, I think winter peace is the ideal thing. I love taking winter photos because the light is so lovely, so fragile in Minnesota in the winter. Sometimes photographing in snowy conditions is challenging: keeping the camera battery warm enough, keeping my fingers warm enough to grasp the camera, finding the correct shutter speed to accommodate how much light the snow reflects. But the shadows on the snow, the way the light falls through bare trees, and how little birds flit around in the slumbering garden is a draw that I find irresistible. And sun reflecting on frozen lakes can be stunning.

So, here you go. Some wintery images. Some moments of peace.

I also wouldn’t be me if I didn’t add a winter poem that seems fitting with these photos and this first post at One Minnesota Crone. Here are the words of Mary Oliver from the Poetry Foundation’s website, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/41662/white-eyes.

White-Eyes

BY MARY OLIVER

In winter 
    all the singing is in 
         the tops of the trees 
             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 
    shoves and pushes 
         among the branches. 
             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 
    but he’s restless— 
         he has an idea, 
             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 
    as long as he stays awake. 
         But his big, round music, after all, 
             is too breathy to last. 

So, it’s over. 
    In the pine-crown 
         he makes his nest, 
             he’s done all he can. 

I don’t know the name of this bird, 
    I only imagine his glittering beak 
         tucked in a white wing 
             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 
    from the north— 
         which he has taught 
             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 
    into the world below 
         like stars, or the feathers 
               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 
    that is asleep now, and silent— 
         that has turned itself 
             into snow.

Source: Poetry (Poetry Foundation, 2002)

Welcome to One Minnesota Crone. I hope I see you here again soon and Happy New Year.

Photos taken near the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and Long Meadow Lake, Bloomington, Minnesota, by kcmickelson, 2021.