Snail Mail and Sei Shonagon

I've been catching up on correspondence this month.  

After failing to reply in a time manner for over a month,

I had quite a few responses to write.

Had fun finally using some of the tea bags I painted last year.

Below: postcards to the grands on top,

The one in the middle has one of my embroidered leaves.  

click to enlarge

Still reading The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, but it, too, has suffered some neglect.  This morning, I read the following entry:

114.  It is Delightful When There Has Been a Thin Fall of Snow

    It is delightful when there has been a thin fall of snow; or again when it has piled up very high and in the evening we sit round a brazier at the edge of the veranda with a few congenial friends, chatting till darkness falls  There is no need for the lamp, since the snow itself reflects a clear light.  Raking the ashes in the brazier with a pair of fire-tongs, we discuss all sorts of moving and amusing things.

(then Shonagon speaks of an unannounced visitor and says that one of the ladies quotes the poem about the man who came today, and they all laughed and stayed up 'til dawn talking. 

 In the end notes, I found the poem by Taira no Kanemori:

Here in my mountain home
The snow is deep
And the paths are buried [in white].
Truly would he move my heart--
The man who came today.

It was a timely entry for me to read this morning, and I thought about my friends Patti and Dave who are shoveling snow in Colorado and my friend Penny, who is staying inside and admiring the snow in North Carolina.