january blues

i woke this morning to the sound of crying puppies and lightning-spiked rain. i walked them in a storm that sounded like august, and felt like april. the waterfall is running, the snow's retreating in smaller and smaller white circles beneath the birches as i watch, revealing broad patches of dark green moss and dun brown mud.

it would be easy to hope, to believe that this is spring, come early, come to stay.

don't be fooled.

each season has its colors, scents and sounds, and like a kaleidescope, they blur and merge and mesh. there is a color unique to a january dawn, a crystalline blue-violet never so acute any other time of year. it has a healing quality unlike any other kind, reminding me to rest, to nourish, beckoning me into sleep. i'm still not quite over my cold, and rather than being impatient with myself, i've decided to baby myself. my body will get better in it's own time... i might as well relax and enjoy the recuperation.

consequently, i haven't done a lot this week other than rest, eat and write.

sarah's chapters are coming together, the weaving is nearly complete. my trip to take care of my brother next week while my mother is in the hospital will delay my finishing the story on the timetable i originally set - the new draft will be finished by the time i go away, but i will want to give it one more read-through, one more polish, before i send it off to jenn. i know Beloved will want to read it, too.

the movers are coming to my grandmother's house today to take the things i decided to keep. tomorrow they come to connecticut, to be distributed, stored, and packed. i try to imagine what the house will look like empty and bare, and i can't. my mind balks, goes blank - my copious imagination stalls, turns gray and empty as a january sky.

again, i ask myself: what am i manifesting?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.