We have reached the point in winter when even seasonal depression has failed to keep us occupied. The need for spring is reaching manic proportions. Undergrads can be seen wearing shorts in 20 degree weather, chanting to themselves "it's not that cold, it's not that cold." We haven't bothered to shovel our sidewalk, counting on the forecasted above freezing weather to magically melt it away. The result is we have a skating rink for a side porch. Even the ice fishermen seem to be losing interest in the sport. Birds are chirping frozen tunes, trying to convince the world to revolve from bleak winter to the promised spring.
Everything will be better when spring comes*. The dishwasher will start cleaning again. The hard drive will resuscitate. The missing organ pipes will reappear. The car won't slip and slid on the ice. And we can start being self righteous about living in the upper Midwest again, because right now it seems pretty stupid.
In happier news, I've had very little insomnia this semester, which I attribute in part to listening to old Shep radio shows, which you can find here or on i-tunes.
*Please don't remind me that in the spring the snow will melt and the rain will come and the basement will flood. And papers will start being due.
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6 comments:
Your thoughts remind me of Gretchen's Facebook poem about Nebraska. It has been sooo cold where you are lately. Any sign of relief would be well received.
But wait! The calendar is fluttering, and I saw March lurking just a few days away. Surely there is hope for a thaw!
Hope n. a feeling that Spring engenders in the hearts of people living in Northern climes.
Endure to the end, as they say, because it truly will end.
Mutti
This too shall pass.
We're feeling it here, too. My kids are riding bikes in 30 degree weather (thinking that it must be warm since they can see the sun). I'm starting Spring cleaning early. Stupid groundhog can't be trusted, anyway.
I'd brag about our beautiful sunny weather but it seems that the jokes on us too. Strange thing this winter is. I remember in Alaska to help fight off the winter there would be big lamps in the buildings that gave off Vitamin-D light to make us feel better. Mostly it made everything weird colors. We were always grateful when our state dividend came and we could escape winter to somewhere less winter. Oddly that was often Utah.
We have the "pre-Spring" season here where the sun is out and green things start poking up, but we know the snow will return for a last (days, weeks-long) hurrah before the real Spring. But the good thing! The sun is out in the morning! When we have to wake up for school! So we are no longer eating breakfast and driving to school in the dark when we feel we should still be in bed. A sign that sunshine and Spring is on it's way. And George Harrison's Spring song will soon run through our mind as we see the tulips and crocuses poke out of the brown ground to welcome the sun after the long, cold lonely winter.
O frost-battered bloom
who swapped your smiles for gloom?
Sun so mournful has never shone
your lonely bed now a barren tomb
Once, in desolate Autumn eyes I reveled
happier than a Spring dawn's perfume
Now, your fate and mine converge
O frost-battered bloom
Fate, at last my crowning love shattered
my beaming smile lamentful tears consume
life wilts in my parched veins
As you know so well, O frost-battered bloom
...
-Hossein Alizadeh, Ode to flowers
(awaiting a post in Spring)
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