For those of you that don’t know, Winterpast is the name of my home. Not ever thinking about naming a house, in April 2020, I named two of them. My old home is named The DunMovin’ House. It sits on A Street in Virginia City, Nevada. If you visit there, look her up. She’s a beauty.
My new house is in a tiny town at a dusty little wide spot in the road. I knew I loved her when I first found her on Realtor.com. Her name is Winterpast. She didn’t have that name before I moved here. Now, it’s displayed by the front door. Forevermore. Winterpast.
As a new widow, heartbroken and lost, I’d teleported into the next phase of life. Physically moving only seventeen days after VST’s death, I was in a deep shock-y fog. No routines were established yet because everything needed attention right then and there. There was so much to do that on most nights I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
During the move, I found a series of books I’d been meaning to read. When VST was alive, I never had time. We were too busy building, remodeling, or RVing to even begin a have a moment to read. But, the need for distraction was real, so I began. The series is about a town named Mitford. The author Jan Karon.
One night, deep into the story, the author spent a chapter introducing an old woman and her memories of love lost. Her one true love, an architect, had built a mansion in her honor. She would have moved in after their marriage, but her father wouldn’t allow it. Her lost love secretly carved the name Winterpast on a hidden beam, in memory of the woman he lost and loved still. He had told her about it in a yellowed letter he’d written to her so long ago. On her dying bed, the woman asked the priest to go to the home and see if the word was indeed carved on a beam in the attic. All those years she had wondered while she spent her life alone. The home had been sold to strangers when completed.
Indeed, chiseled onto the beam was the word “Winterpast”, hidden for decades.
The author then went on with the next chapter without explaining the reason for the name. Scrambling to get my bible, I read the verses in Song of Solomon — 2:11-17. I knew. It was if the angels had whispered the name in my ear. I’d just moved into my very own Winterpast. Plain and simple.
Winter has past me for a little while. Spring is here. “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” Now, in some versions of the Bible, the Turtle Dove’s voice is heard in the land. In my Bible, it is the voice of the turtle. It makes me smile every time I read it while thinking of little singing turtles enjoying life.
Get out and enjoy the spring time; it’s here such a short time. Lot’s to do here in the gardens of Winterpast.
A Song for Winterpast
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Oh, let me see your beauty when all the neighbors have gone home
Pretty roses growing after the day’s work is done
Show me slowly spring’s beauty with your sweet allure
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the autumn now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath a desert sky, above us twinkling stars
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the apricots who are ask a ripened orange
Dance me through the curtains to the gardens that need work
Raise a tent of breezes now, until all the tilling is done
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your natural beauty, sent from God above.
Dance me to the end of love.
“Dance Me to the End of Love” –Originally written by Leonard Cohen, changes written by me, inspired by Winterpast.
More tomorrow.