Bottom of the year

I think I've acclimated to winter. You know that feeling - you walk outside on a day where the high temperature is 35, and you think, "Wow, with no breeze, it actually feels pretty good out here." I mean, it's not like we're in Chicago, where it's -1, with blowing snow. Running outside is easy if you layer properly.

At the same time, I realize I'm about 60% of the person I am during the other seasons of the year. Seasons when you willingly spend time outside. There are no gardens to tend. No scents and colors to revel in. I am more still, more introspective.

I wouldn't jump right in and say I have seasonal affect disorder (you know they came up with that acronym on purpose), but who can argue that the fairly monochromatic palette of winter is not a downer on some level? I mean, we're driving out to the bus stop at 4:30pm to pick up K, and J comments that it is 'evening'. That's the kind of thing she just says. "Mom, it's evening, isn't it?" Girlfriend's mind is always churning. Anyway. My immediate thought is that this time would be considered afternoon several months from now. I could be out running the neighborhood with the sun high in the sky. I could walk out to the mailbox in shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops, and sigh with delight at the temperature.

However, I can take pleasure in the quiet nature of our January surroundings. The trees truly seem to sleep, oblivious to the bluster and diffidence of the weather. The birds hunker down and carefully take in their surroundings, nests exposed. Many is the morning I contemplate hawks perched on telephone wires as they consider adjacent meadows, searching for mice and other vermin as gray and brown as the surrounding grasses. The low, slate and leaden clouds lay like a blanket over the sky.

The season pulls at the melancholy that is at the very core of me, and it is somehow comforting. I spend extra time snuggling under the covers when J first comes into my room each morning, silently climbing up into my bed and curling into me without a word, a request for invitation. I sit fairly motionless and watch as the birds swoop up and attempt to balance on the 'feeder' J made in school - a mini bagel pressed with bird seed, hanging from the deck railing, tied with blue yarn. I make an excuse for festivity, lighting a fire before dinner because the girls love a picnic on the floor in front of its warmth.

This settling and succumbing will turn to boredom, and finally, dissatisfaction, I'm sure. And it will be a long climb before the weather is ready to turn again to the season of awakening and rebirth. But for now I am content. Without the barrier of foliage, it is easy to hear the trains rumble through the valley some four miles away. Sometimes winds roar across the fields and taunt the trees who have already let go of all their leaves. But for now, all is quiet and still. My home is warm and the girls are sleeping. I am at peace.