Winter Doldrums

Winter Doldrums

Another day in January, and another day passes where you feel like you are just passing time. The sun is low all day long. You get up early and walk to your car in the dark. You carefully walk on the shoveled sidewalk. It’s melted and frozen over with ice. The frost on your windshield is the only thing physical to do, and even that you dread, because you don’t want to be in the chill of the cold morning. So you start up the car, turn up the front defroster and the rear defroster too. You run the windshield washer fluid across the windshield, hoping to melt the frost.

Work is easy, and hard at the same time. There is nothing better you could be doing. Ice and piles of dirty brown snow on all the sidewalks, there is no hope of running, biking or just sitting out on the patio with a friend. But you are daydreaming of days when you can go hiking, biking, and drink on the back porch.

And when the day is finally done, you walk outside to a sunset, so early, already. The sky is overcast, and a little more light snow falls down on your car. You carefully negotiate the rush hour traffic and arrive home in the dark. The winter is so solemn, but also in that peace and quiet, there is also loneliness.

If it were possible, I’d sit by the furnace, and dry out my skin, while drinking a red wine. Red wine and dark beer, the official drinks of winter. But I am not. I am just staying alone with my thoughts. Wishing for love and friendship and peace. I hope to get them all this summer.