After celebrating Christmas and the New Year and having a houseful of family, as January has settled in and the old routines have taken control again, and winter is asserting itself more aggressively, I find myself becoming both lethargic and restive. One day I want to do nothing but sit and read by the warm wood stove. Another day, I pace the house looking for something, anything to distract me. I start projects like reorganizing the kitchen cupboards or alphabetizing books by author’s surname only to stop halfway through to look for something else to do. I spend a lot of time fussing over my houseplants. And I often find myself standing at the windows and looking out across the dormant gardens and scheming. I have so many ideas and plans swirling around in my head, but they must wait for spring which seems so far off – and that makes me even more lethargic and restive.
 |
| On a dreary morning walk. |
 |
| On a dreary morning walk. |
 |
| The beaver pond on a evening after chores. |
January and February are the most difficult months of the year for me. They seem to go on forever and have very little to redeem them – there are no great holidays to celebrate in either month (I don’t count Valentines Day as a great holiday – it’s too contrived). The biggest celebration is one my family invented – Italy Weekend – when we get together to celebrate February birthdays and the anniversary of our trip to Italy in 2019. But that is still weeks away. For the last two years we’ve gone to Florida in February and anticipating that helped me get through those bleak Januarys. But since Stacey’s employer, Mr. Rigas, passed, there will be no more trips to Florida for the foreseeable future. There will be no escape from the brutal cold to walk on the warm beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.
We had some bitterly cold weather last week. I thought it was cold when, for the first time this winter, we hit single digits when the thermometer dropped to 9° one night. But yesterday morning when I got up, it was 3° below zero, so now we’ve had our first sub-zero temperature of this winter too. We had hard frost every morning last week and on Thursday night and Friday we had snow. Yesterday morning, when it was so cold, the sky was clear – that astonishing shade of winter sky blue – and the sun on the snow and frost was dazzling. As cold as it was, I had to go out and experience all of that frozen beauty. I waited until it was a little warmer, 3° above zero, and set out across the yard and down to the beaver pond and back. That bright, clear weather didn’t last. The forecasters issued a winter storm watch last night and this morning we had sleet and freezing rain. It seems January wants to throw her best and her worst at us.
 |
| A cold and bright morning. |
 |
| My walk on a cold bright morning. |
 |
| The beaver pond on a cold bright morning. |
After writing that, I wondered why do I always personify certain months as male or female? Why do I think of January, despite her being the first month of the year, as an old hag? Why is March an angry young man, or June a radiant young woman? I did a little research and discovered something I’d never heard about before called Ordinal Linguistic Personification. It is a type synesthesia – something I had also never heard of before – which is a neurologic condition in which one sense activates another. People with synesthesia do things like hear music in colors, or perceive things like numbers or letters as having colors, or certain words as having taste. Synesthesia is thought to be more common in people with autism, and in creative people like artists, musicians, and poets. People with the Ordinal Linguistic Personification type of synesthesia associate personalities and genders with things like numbers, letters of the alphabet, and months of the year. Now that I’ve learned this, I’m wondering about myself. I sometimes associate colors with music, especially when I listen to classical music. And to me every month has a gender and personality. I always thought I was just waxing poetic when I thought that way. Now I’m wondering if I have a neurological condition. It’s all January’s fault.
I consoled myself all week with Mozart (whose colors, by the way, are always bright and toward the green part of the spectrum). I needed music a little lighter than Bach (rich colors in deep blue and crimson), but with beautiful melodies and harmonies, and no one is better at that than Mozart. And my first choice among his 626 cataloged works was his piano concerti. I listened to all twenty-seven of them. I love them all, but I especially love Nos. 17 to 27. They are perfect. And listening to them makes me happy.
 |
| A sunset last week. |
And, as if they sensed my brittle January mood, my amaryllises have begun to bloom. I used to have two pots of them, one pure white and one white and pink, but last fall I noticed they were getting crowded in their pots, so I divided and transplanted them into six pots. After transplanting them, I trimmed off their leaves and let them go dormant. Just after Thanksgiving, I began watering them again and they sprouted leaves right away. Then flower stalks emerged and grew so tall I had to move them onto a bench I brought down from the workroom to give them room. All six of them have flower stalks and some of their buds are opening. The white ones are the descendants of a single bulb my Aunt Joyce sent to me many years ago. The pink and white ones are from a plant Stacey got for me as a rescue. I can hardly wait to see them all in bloom. They make me smile no matter what is happening outdoors.
 |
| My amaryllises. |
On Wednesday, Miriam had to make an unexpected trip to the Thayn’s house. Tabor’s mother was supposed to be coming from Idaho to take care of the children while Tabor and Rachel went on a business trip, but her flight was canceled. So Miriam went down to take care of the children until Tabor’s mother could get another flight. But with the bad weather and all the canceled flights, Tabor’s mother decided not to travel, so Miriam stayed on. She’ll be home on Tuesday. With Miriam gone, there are just three of us at home. And next door, all the Shillig’s company have gone too. So things were especially subdued most of the week.
This morning when I woke up and looked out the window, I thought it didn’t look as bad as I anticipated. It was still dark, but I could see that there had been no new snow accumulation. I proceeded to get ready for church. After I’d dressed, I stepped out onto the front porch and realized I was mistaken. Everything was coated in a layer of ice. I went online to look at the weather site and saw that we were now under an Ice Storm Warning. I notified our branch president that we wouldn’t be at church. In fact all our local churches had already canceled their services. At 8:30 we were notified that our branch president had canceled our services too. So I changed from my church clothes into regular wear, filled up buckets and pitchers with water in case the power went out, and revved up the wood stove. I’ve kept the wood stove burning night and day for most of the week. I’ve finally figured out how to keep it burning low all night and in the mornings I build it up again. Before he left to return to school, Josiah replenished our wood supply on the back porch. That’s mostly gone now and tomorrow I will have to bring more wood from the big pile at the side of the house onto the porch. I say big pile, but it isn’t so big now. We might have to go and buy another load of wood soon.
 |
| The weather this morning. |
So we did not go to church today. We tried to make the Sabbath feel special in spite of that. We spent the day doing quiet things. I put on a queue of sacred music. I did some family history research. They broadcast our Sunday School lesson on Zoom and we tuned into that. I spent time reading by the wood stove. The Shilligs came over for lunch. It’s been a pleasant day so far despite the weather.
The week ahead looks like it will be snowy and cold. Of course. The old routines will keep us in their thrall. I have school. Miriam will be home on Tuesday and that will be nice. The most exciting thing on the immediate horizon is that we are having our septic tank pumped during the week. Because it’s January.
