Marching forward

I often feel that February is the longest month.

I realize that in terms of actual days, it takes up the smallest space on the calendar. However, February is the last full month of winter. For those of us who live in the land of seasons, it can be dark, cold, wet, and downright gloomy. The seasonal cheer of Christmas is far behind us. Valentines day is done. The season of Lent is upon us, so for Christians, this is a time of sacrifice and reflection. The days can drag on.

It is around this time every year that I feel the itch of spring. The Earth is feeling it as well. Our bulbs are inching their way to the surface. The leaves are making their final free-falls from some of our trees in an effort to make space for new buds and leaves. The stores are filling with Easter baskets, pastel dresses, and (heaven forbid!) bathing suits. We have days where the temperature barely pushes 45 degrees. On other days, we are tempted to open the windows, letting in the fresh air and sunshine.

February is a long, cruel month.

I was searching for quotes about Spring this week for my school newsletter and found this gem from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: "Spring is the time of plans and projects."

Indeed it is. After a long winter's nap, spring gives us the itch to do more. The days are getting longer. The weather is more tolerable for outdoor activity. The garden wakes from its nap. The house begs to be cleaned and organized. We start to plan our summer vacations. We ruminate over the New Year's Resolutions that we have already broken, perhaps vowing to start again with a new season.

My head and my heart are full of plans. The logistics of time and energy are quite another matter. These days, I find myself struggling once again in a search for balance. If my writing seems sporadic, it is not for lack of ideas. It is simply a lack of time. Or a surplus of responsibilities.

As we march into March, I hope to refocus some of that energy. I know that it will mean some things will need to fall by the wayside. Where is your energy as the season of Spring approaches?

To everything there is a season

It's been a while since I used the blog to share my thoughts. What started as some random musings turned into much more than a Facebook post. I started writing this over a week ago but it's taken a minute to actually hit the publish button. Thanks for your patience. Welcome back. It has been a week (or two) . One of those weeks where everything happens all at once. A week where things need to happen in a particular order or everything‘s going to go to shit. A week where you just seem to go from one thing to the next thing and you’ll figure out what’s going to happen next as it goes along. A week full of work and family and rest and sleeplessness and it never feels like there’s enough time for anything. But somehow it all works out. A plaque on the library walk in NYC My week started with a trip for work to NYC. It coincided with my birthday. Because of that, I had all kinds of feelings all week about life in general. The week ended with a trip to Florida that, unfortun...

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9. Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole. There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them." I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known. This...

The Stages of Grief: COVID Edition

It's 2020. It's almost Christmas. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. In fact, we are experiencing what appears to be an incredible surge that is exerting tremendous pressure on our healthcare and social service system. The headlines are clear: we're not done with this madness and December 31, 2020 will not magically be the "end of it". Earlier in the year, our family thought about whether we might be able to travel at this time. We thought that maybe the curve would be flat enough that we could take a few days away from home during the Christmas holidays. We realized that the pandemic would still be happening, but with the right protections and with prolific mask usage, we could get a much-needed change of scenery. During what is now (clearly) a delusional thought process, we booked a stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the week of December 19th. Spoiler alert: we canceled the trip almost two weeks ago. Canceling this trip was not a tragedy. In fact, I ...

I See What You Meme

Search This Blog