It’s Cold Out There..

Well, we’re now in mid-February a time of year that can be cold, gray, and dirty with slushy snow. And the winter this year has been wild--who ever thought they’d see ice hockey on the streets of New Orleans?

It is, to me, the coldest and dreariest time of the winter. I can talk about how I go outside on the warm days and work the beds a little, weeding and trying to get a handle on the plan for this year. I can make over the cardinals and the house wren. I can revel in the ornery neighborhood tomcat that has taken up here.

All these, and I feel as dreary as I do excited. Gonna have to crank up the inner machine to see if I can bathe me in a few more feel-good chemicals. As much dreary as there is, it could just be that the sheer volume of death in the last year has finally overwhelmed me a little. It could be the political chaos that could affect my life is heaped on top of that.

Yet, in all the cold, and all the dreary and all the loss, there are so many miracles: the call from a friend long lost in my address book, just as I was talking about her to someone else. The gaggle of birds, from wrens to robins, cardinals, and jays that torment the cat who lurks near the birdfeeder and his comical response.

If this were a glass? It’s not half-empty, or half-full. It’s refillable.