why i won’t give up on february
by bam
it is, of all the stretches here of days, the one that, like a testy child, pushes you pretty much to the urge to pack it up, move in to that there closet, turn out the lights and stew a while.
perhaps, like mr. ground hog, you’ll peek out from time to time, catch the gloomy sky, dart back to where the coats dangle, and the boots convene a convention of vacuum-bustin’ dust balls.
perhaps you’ll hear the snow fall, for the umpteen-millionth day in a row, and you’ll want to pull your hairs out.
or, perhaps, you’ll go on cold strike: saunter out to get the paper in just some skimpy little t-shirt, and shorts. forego the knee-high rubber wellies. do strappy sandals instead. show skin. and what you’re made of. give them neighbors ’bout as big a shock as hearts can handle in the month of gooey chocolates stuffed in frilly, foil, heart-shaped boxes.
you can grouse, from now till thaw, about the unrelenting march of spirit-beating weather.
like me when learning how to drive (a stick-shift on busy highway, but that’s a story for another day), the weather here is apt to lurch. might wrench your neck, jerking back and forth from all the scribbles, dots, and dashes on the weather map.
oh, lord, what’s that funnel running through the south? oh, no, what’s with ice in cincinnati, city of the seven hilly hills? and here, in sweet chicago, get your neck brace on: one day cold and snowy. the next day colder still. followed by rain that might as well come down in cubes, for the way it freezes, turns to sheets of call-the-orthopod, i-think-i-broke-my-tailbone.
or, you can still the protest, leave the grumpy room, you can, if you care to, join my club. it’s a club for contrarians. we like what no one else does. cloudy days? we’ll take ’em. thunderstorms? bring on the cracks of lightning, riveting the sky. stirring wonder in the way the trees show up like x-rays there against the stormy night.
i don’t even mind all this: the diamond-dusted world i just woke up to. the way the flakes caught bits of moonlight, shimmered like a thousand million stars, scattered on the folds and folds and mounds and mounds of white.
i don’t mind how papa cardinal, my red-bird joy especially in winter, i don’t mind one bit how he sticks out against the snow. how he catches my breath. fluffed up on branches, trying to beat the cold with his feathers perched at full attention. there he is just now, right outside my window, and the sun is barely up. he is the lone flash of pigment till the valentines begin. and when they’re tucked away, papa still will strut his scarlet, the very heartbeat of promise.
i dare you, i think i do, to catch the flight of fury-feathered cardinal in the thick of falling snow and not to whisper, “oh, dear, there’s the flight from heaven, sent to stir my soul.”
that bird to me is hope on wing. a laugh-out-loud reminder that we are not alone. it can be unrelenting cold and white, and that red of reds shatters the tableau. bursts through the hopelessness, shouts, there is life where you are doubting.
and that, i think, is why i love this month. it’s the month of nearly giving up. of thinking you cannot make it this one last time. the month of thinking you’ll be tied and wrapped before it ever ends.
but then the holy hallelujah comes. the red bird. the pure contentment of mere survival. the steaming bowl of soup when you come in from shoveling, you sisyphean fool.
you think, perhaps, the thinkers were not thinking when they made this month the shortest one? of course they were, they understood. although they were down in rome, where i doubt this month is much too awful. and don’t even pay attention to the fact that this leaping year, we get a one-day extra helping. oh, loathe, you might say.
but not me.
i say, bring it on, this lull when winter settles in, sinks deep, when february mucks around inside my very marrow. proves it’s the boss and we are merely mortals. mortals complete with goosebumps (hey, who took the feathers?).
i like a month that isn’t mamby-pamby. you wanna be a winter month? well, then, act like it.
i take my coffee undiluted. i fill my car with full-strength octane. i’ll take february just the same.
if we have half an ounce of courage, now’s the time to show it. go ahead, take a walk. fill your lungs with frozen air, a composition that defies mere physics.
not one ounce of living worth its weight in ice-devouring rock salt comes without extracting something. matters not if it’s a season’s change, or healing heartbreak. matters not if your long haul is pit-a-pat of feet clocking many miles. or believing in a hard-won dream.
if we long for warmer winds, we’ve two choices: stay locked in closet waiting out the thaw, or step outside, and drink in what the shortest month has to offer–the chance to be wholly wide-awake to sparkling snow, rosy cheeks, and papa cardinal landed on your windowsill. oh my. i’ll take my february.
on ice, if you can spare some.
all right, all right, i understand. some of you just need to get it off your chest. “why i long for april,” a list. get started, you who can’t resist. however, if you, like me, are fine with february, then carry on. you tell us reasons why. and what you like to do when the second month is wholly up upon us……i think it’s black bean soup at our house tonight….hot and spicy and full of steam…
i snapped papa for you amid yesterday’s thick shaking out of snowy clouds. all day, three fine fellows, robed in red, and their mates, a little more in brown, kept me filled with joy, as they spent the hours, from dawn till almost dark, flitting to my bird-seed troughs….
4 comments
slj
I moved from the midwest to Seattle ten years ago. As I prepared for my move, I was cautioned that it was pretty gray and dreary in Seattle. One wise sage told me, if you wait for a sunny day to go for a run or a hike, you will be stuck indoors for quite awhile. He also told me that if you stand still long enough, moss wil begin to grow on the back of your legs. I came to love all seasons in Seattle and I now realize that sunny days are rare gems in Chicago in the winter too.
As for February, being a child of the northwoods, I loved the snow. Whether it was sledding or skiing, igloo making or snowman-making, I loved them all. I will never forget the thermoses of cocoa that we would bring out to our snow forts. We would take the leftover candy canes from Christmas and drink the cocoa out of these striped minty sticks. From time to time we would take the warmed candy canes and dip them in the snow. This was a gourmet treat for an 8 year-old, better than any fondue I’ve ever tried.
So yes, February, I still love it as an adult. Now I find that February gives me plenty of reason to heat up the tea pot more than once each day and curl up with a book under my big ol’ down comforter.
I think I would take two or three Februarys for one March or April
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 – 11:12 AM
bam
ahhh, bless your nordic soul……who else could claim that equation?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 – 12:01 PM
laura
just when i’m feeling a bit glum, deflated by weather (pouring buckets today), unmotivated by the lull of this month i pull up a chair. thank you for reminding all to puff out their feathery little chests and stride right through the muck.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 – 12:20 PM
jcv
Friends, February is just kicking my butt, that’s all I can say.
I love all the sledding and the hot cocoa and the snowmen, really I do, but this cold, together with the menacing ice rink lurking just out of view beneath the snow, is starting to wear me down.
I did hear a cardinal today, which refueled my hope for the future. And this evening it is actually not bone-chillingly, lung-wrackingly cold, just a pleasant winter night. Postively great for dog walking or taking out the weeks of recycles I have accumulated.
Thanks for the positive perspectives on February. I think it helped.
Thursday, February 14, 2008 – 10:42 PM