I like February. I really do. It's lighter and usually warmer. It has Valentine's Day, which I don't actually like, but which makes for a pleasant flurry of bright-red and chocolate-flavored activity in the middle of the month. By the end of the month early finches and crocuses start pushing their way in, reminding me that winter isn't going to last forever.
Which is so, so good, because February is right about when I start to feel like this season is going to last forfuckingever [note: spellcheck suggested "bloodsucking" here. YES.]. I am ALWAYS going to be dragging myself out of bed in the pitch black dark, stumbling through the house as I pull on my coat and gloves and running shoes, shivering as I step out into the night to run. I am always going to be coming home as the last light fades from the sky and the kids start to cannibalize each other as I assemble the ingredients for dinner. If I need to dash out to the library or the store after dinner, it's always going to be in the icy dark. The back yard will always be sealed under a glacier of ice studded with summer detritus (melted jackolanterns, plastic shovels, matchbox cars).
So. A little post about my favorite things about coming home late in the dark, shall we?
1. The neighborhood looks so cozy as I pull into it at 5:30, with its blue-black streets and its rows of yellow windows.
2. The house itself feels cozy, as we pull the drapes closed and turn on the lights. It feels like the phrase "coming home."
3. If I've managed to get something going in the crock pot (ok, so far this has happened ONCE), it smells like the most delicious dinner EVER and I am so grateful--to crockpots, to my morning self who so thoughtfully set this up, to dinner.
4. If we decide fuckit, we're going out to eat, this feels like a magnificent indulgence, and I am grateful to restaurants everywhere.
5. I know that if I didn't currently have a job and I had been sitting around the house all day, I would be totally nostalgic for this "coming home" feeling, and I would conveniently forget the exhaustion, the starvingness, the kids melting into puddles of accusing misery.
Happy Friday, all!
1 comment:
I'm liking this February too. And last February also had great weather. It's a nice way to break up the winter.
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