Blow, if you must March gales…for winter…we are finished with you. The cold’s contract is complete, signed in grey and sealed with exhaustion.

Our eyes turn toward the long anticipated greening of the fields as the faint strains of ‘O Danny Boy’ birthe liltingly and trippingly over rutted, frozen potato mounds. The raw earth and the twisted fence line, they mark time’s passage. Winter threw us famine and now we are cooking up thick, oily and crunchy potato cakes.

Smell the black sod and the heated food. Blow if you must March gales, but the shamrock fog shall soon carry you far away…

Funny things happen. I’m getting my pedicure, sitting in my chair, relaxing and watching the diminutive man paint my toes ever so expertly and carefully…so, so carefully. Precision and artistry. Suddenly!…Furiously! In bursts a woman…bells on the door jangling with abandon.

Cacophony! She’s tall and frantic and says way too loudly…’I got here as fast as I could!’

She looks directly at me but I see only a harried face, large sunglasses…a half donned medical mask.

So. I look away and pretend I am somewhere else.

Needless to say, the precise artist is now re-painting…ever so carefully…so, so carefully…my toes.

We were both taken aback. It was jarring. But of course neither of us will ever admit it…

In the gloaming eve, as the heavy greying blue clouds hint at more snow to come…somewhere, sometime…the spirit most usually withdraws, sighing gently as a close to the day.

The shutting of the door, folding into companionship, warm food and the body wrapped in flannel, absorbed in prayer and thought…the inner life unfolds with twilight…

Welcome February…shortest month, rich with reds and pinks, rose petals and white lace…strawberry dipped chocolates…cinnamon tea in creamy white ceramic mugs. There are the frosted midnight wine glasses in overly heated restaurants and the underflow of murmured chatter. We glance out through frozen glass panes…knowing, feeling that despite the predictable bitter March gusts waiting ahead…February is the border between winter and spring; the winter’s farewell tip of the hat, the ice-winking…and the grand Cupid exit…

Slipping gently on ice, stepping gingerly into the month of pinks and creams…scarlets and shades of ruby gold…etched in dashes of deepest black…

Ground Hog Day…and what of it, really? I mean, really!

Old Man Winter, Lady Snow, Lord Wind and Sister Lake Effect toyed with us and found us wanting. They headed in a westerly direction, out to the political scene in Iowa, making mischief and searching for exciting precipitation. They sat down together in the middle of the great plains to enjoy high tea.

They celebrated well. ‘Pass the frost, please’ and ‘How delicious; layered permafrost with a gropple topping’.

I am bored and so is Phil, our regional rodent of renown. No snow, no shadow, no sun. Six weeks is the verdict.

Heading north today…toward the city, toward the lake, toward spring…

I am giving official notice to winter and all the dull, iced vagaries.

Whatever the sun, moon, stars and thermometer wish to do is…and I quote the Germans, ‘Mir Egal’.

I am done with January and have traded in the grey and blah for my pink, red and white coffee mugs…and red candles…and pink roses…and chocolates.

Living well in the softening center between winter and spring…

Today for some reason, I recalled the tragically hysterical afternoon when Dad and Mom ventured cautiously into a nearby small town theater to watch what they thought was a documentary on Alaska.

It was not.

It was one of Steven Seagal’s thick jawed, martial arts, clunk headed, high body count, ‘F-bomb dropping’, inane films…and astonishingly, my parents sat through the entire thing.

It was one of the rare times Dad described something or someone as ‘stupid’ multiple times…in his quiet fashion.

I believe they hoped, if they remained in the theater long enough…that civilization would somehow right itself as the credits rolled. As I mentioned, ‘stupid’ was uttered more than once.

The whole mess was only slightly rectified for them with an excellent dinner…and I’ve been chuckling all day, just thinking about it…

Received an email from the Kidney Foundation…(about car donations)…telling me they have missed me.

I donated a car this past spring.

How many cars do they think I own?

When I get dressed and leave the house, I get nothing done; minimally nothing.

When I remain home and in my pajamas and am left alone to direct everything from Command Central (my bed), I accomplish all sorts of things.

All I need are pens, paper, books, a phone, my laptop, the TV remote, a flash drive, financial files and something to drink.

I remember reading somewhere that Sir Winston Churchill directed a large portion of World War II from his bed. It has been said that he advised a visitor, ‘Never stand when you can sit down’.

This gem, this person…is a man I understand.

The morning was silent, grey…worn down after a tight week of work, meals, politics, illness…and all the nonsense of systems gone wrong, people inadequate, property taxes raised and what on earth would come of all the suffering in Ukraine and in the eastern lands?

With a sudden rattle and deafening cawing and scramble…with a mad fluttering, a crowd of energized winter geese honking wildly…rose up over the rooftops…sinew and muscle obeying the orders of the Creator…above the weary earth…the simplicity of an ordered instinct…resting in the direction of the flight…