Midwinter

The river is frozen and covered with snow. So am I. I sweep snow from my walk and chip ice from my windshield so that I may drive to places I’d rather not be. The sky is gray and threatening and so are all the unwilling drivers on the road. Chance of snow: 30% today. Chance of imminent blue funk: 100%.

What is it about this month? Is it delayed post-holiday letdown? The monster snowstorm? Or the knowledge that spring is still at least a month away? Perhaps it’s the dull depression of the monochrome landscape: sky, trees and river chalked in gray-brown boredom, with gray-brown snow mountains everywhere else. What the world needs is a spot of contrast, a little more red: a warm color.

When I worked, I left home in dawn’s first threads of light and returned in unraveling dusk. I lived a twilight life in winter—daylight being the exclusive benediction of the unemployed. I, on the other hand, paid taxes in sunlight, doling out the brightness of daytime, week after week, for the privilege of having a job. Some days the tariff was too high.

My world was circumscribed by the path from house to car to garage to office—and the circle was too small, too gray, and too coldly incestuous. In winter, I now move through my house, dodging the drafts, taking small comforts in my kitchen, baking what I should not eat and eating what I should not bake. I feel myself growing in apathy, age, and girth. I wallow in cups of tea and hot chocolate, and despair of summer’s return.

This is not an optimist’s month. It speaks in Eeyore tones, telling me that I am old and tired and incapable of pulling together all the loose ends of my life—at home and at work—and weaving them into some kind of meaningful whole. I contemplate my half-empty cup of tea, measure myself, and come up short.

The best thing to say about winter is… it’s almost over. Days are getting longer, albeit not noticeably. February brought Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, a clutch of birthdays of friends and neighbors…February’s a short month, and March is on its heels.

Maybe, here comes the sun. You’re overdue, mister.