This is (apparently) one of those endless winters. Is there any season whose delayed beginning inspires such universal gnashing of the teeth? The mix of hail and snow through which I walked home on Monday night seemed particularly cruel, coming on the eve of "official" spring. "March is the worst month," an older woman told me in the gym locker room the other day, breaking the usual code of silence among strangers. "I've always considered February to be wholly superfluous," I offered. "At least February is short," she said grimly. "March just goes on and on. The winter just continues, when you know it should be over."
I feel like I'm stuck in March, lately. It's no longer perpetual December in my life, that's for sure. Good things are closer than they've ever been. But it is not unlike looking at plants in a catalogue: it's wonderful to flip the pages and dream, and that catalogue and your dreams might get you through the winter as far as, yes, March - but, eventually, you need to reach May. Enough of the in-between seasons, of the hope for a spring that never comes. You want to get down in the soil, to feel the sun on your face or sweat on the back of your neck, to wince while pulling rose thorns from your thumb, to stand in the yard while bumble bees lumber across petals, to sit on the screened-in porch eating August tomatoes. You want all of it, the pain and the pleasure; you want it to begin.
My gratitude for the right-now is wearing thin, to be honest. There is still work to be done, writing to be written, plans to be made, and I am stuck in-between seasons.
I feel like I'm stuck in March, lately. It's no longer perpetual December in my life, that's for sure. Good things are closer than they've ever been. But it is not unlike looking at plants in a catalogue: it's wonderful to flip the pages and dream, and that catalogue and your dreams might get you through the winter as far as, yes, March - but, eventually, you need to reach May. Enough of the in-between seasons, of the hope for a spring that never comes. You want to get down in the soil, to feel the sun on your face or sweat on the back of your neck, to wince while pulling rose thorns from your thumb, to stand in the yard while bumble bees lumber across petals, to sit on the screened-in porch eating August tomatoes. You want all of it, the pain and the pleasure; you want it to begin.
My gratitude for the right-now is wearing thin, to be honest. There is still work to be done, writing to be written, plans to be made, and I am stuck in-between seasons.
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