According to the laws of physics, there is no difference between the past and the future. My Valentine’s Day Blind Date with a book (thank you, Farmington Public Library) revealed itself to be The Order of Time by Carlo Rovello. I was attracted by the words on the white paper cover –physics, philosophy, science, theory–in bold red marker. Not my comfort zone. But because I am making notes and drawing pictures as I am thinking about a short fiction piece that involves the twisting of time, I picked up this book. Time Piece. The drawing and the notebook writing continue. Where will this take me? And when will I get there? In some other plane, I am there already. Or am I?

On the inside front cover, someone wrote “Vicki Lynn Holmsten” in pencil. It looks like this someone was still not quite comfortable with making that awkward letter “K.”  The copyright is 1938, but this later printing probably appeared in our house in the 1950’s. It is not presented in flashy colors. Most of the illustrations are black line drawings, with a few full-page pictures enhanced with blue color fill. I loved this book dearly. Something about disobedient penguins running amok in a small town and the Popper household always made me laugh. What I remember most clearly is the proper Mrs. Popper who had some objections to this waddle of penguins in her home nevertheless obliged her husband (and the penguins) by playing the piano for them while they danced. Because the penguins needed cold, Mrs. Popper cut out the fingers of her gloves so she could play for the performing penguins.  Mrs. Hammerlund read this book aloud to us in first grade, and my mother read it to me many times before I took it up on my own. The dust jacket is long gone–evidence it has been read and loved. In 2011, someone made a movie with Jim Carrey as Mr. Popper. No thanks. I did not want to see it. I’ll stay with my old-fashioned copy of the story in the boring colors.  Dance on, Penguins. Dance on.

  It is the time of year when the days grow shorter and my internal clock sends me to the kitchen to bake. Last week, the sour dough boule and the cardamom coffee bread. This week the Swedish ginger cookies for Christmas–the peparkaker recipe from Lillian Anderson in the Hinsdale Swedish Covenant Church cookie book circa 1968. Grandmother’s wooden spoons are back at work. After the holidays, the light will return little by little, and I will get back to the manuscripts and my long list of projects. For now, let the flour fly. All will come to be in its own good time.