Well Hello There!

There's something about winter that makes me tight-lipped and furrowed-of-brow, hibernation-prone and cross at nobody in particular. The titular tidings of the holidays piss me off. The endless cold, the thousands of tea bags sacrificed for those hard-to-hold moments of fortification, the God-damned Clementines being pawned by every grocery outlet; it all leads to madness I tell you, madness!

Having grown up in the flippin' Upper Peninsula of Michigan, what with it's nine months of winter a year you'd think I'd be breezing through this easy-peasy Missouri winter with aplomb. But that wouldn't be me. I don't like to talk, I don't like to write about it, I don't like anybody or anything, particularly in January. So now that January is behind us, let us start our relationship anew. Relationships are what I'm all about these days.

The madness that is winter seems to get worse with each year passing. The older I become the more ancient and crusty I seem to get in the cold months. I am like an old bear in a cold cave. I have burrowed in and wallered around and want nothing more than to sleep off the bitter cold whilst dreaming of summer's berries and beaches, stone fruits and sunshine. Fuck the coldness of the winter soul.

Winter zeitgeist is all-powerful and all-encompassing in its annual energy-suck. It slams my head back into the pillow when I try to get up in the fucking cold morning. It makes me punch in telephone numbers so hard I hurt my fingers and burn the toast. It makes me ashamed to be seen in public and too grumpy to be nice to other people. It makes me want to swat a giant, ancient paw at my rowdy cubs, who suffer winter in a different way: they have the dreaded cabin fever. As much as I want to hole up and never venture out of my venerable quilts, the young ones are ready to make a break for it. Fuck that, I say. Stay inside where it's warm and full of quiet toys.

So back to the relationships part of this fucking winter. Thank you, friends. You may not know it, but I am here in spirit. The part of me that is too self-absorbed to speak asks for forgiveness. This is the part of me that is frozen and still, talking to dead family in my head, and I don't know when I'll be warm enough to speak out loud again.

But thanks to those of you who care enough to wonder, there is a little green sprout protruding from the center of me. I think by the time spring rolls around, I will be ready to be transplanted outside. And maybe my lips will thaw enough to talk out loud and maybe my fingers will defrost from the ice encrusted claws they are right now so that I may type freely again.

~Mahalo for listening