Monday Meander – February 1, 2021

Starting Over

Let’s face it – as a first month of a new year, January 2021 was a bust! Nothing new about it in my part of the world, unless one counts a new lockdown, a new State of Emergency, a new Stay At Home order, new virus variants, new uncertainty, and new disappointments. Oh, and let’s not forget new bickering over vaccine supplies on both a local and global scale. 

Not a single one of these new year things was even close to being on my wish list!

My first task this morning was to tear the January page off the wall calendar. Never has the sound of ripping paper given me such delight, such resolve to begin again, to kick off into the day, the month, the year anew – restrictions, uncertainties, and all.

“February…

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,

It kissed the forehead of the Earth,

And smiled upon the silent sea,

And bade the frozen streams be free,

And waked to music all their fountains,

And breathed upon the frozen mountains…"

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

 

 

 

 

“With the lengthening days which distinguish the third month of winter from its predecessor, come ardent desires for spring, and longings for the time of birds and flowers. An adventurous swallow too early flying from the south, a vision of snowdrops in the snow, a day of April warmth lit by a slant February sun, are all hailed with pleasure as harbingers of a more gracious season on its northland way.”  

Oscar Fay Adams, January 1886

“Today is the first of February, snowy, brilliant, but dripping with the sound of spring wherever the sun lies warm, and calling with the heart of spring yonder where the crows are assembling. There is spring in the talk of the chickadees outside my window, and in the cheerful bluster of a red squirrel in the hickory.”  

Dallas Lore Sharp, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1908

February makes a bridge and March breakes it.

Selected from the Finest Fancies of Moderne Muses, with a Thousand Outlandish Proverbs

(edited by George Herbert, 1593–1633)

  

It’s  first day of the first month of the rest of 2021. Let’s build some bridges!

 

©2021 April Hoeller

Monday Meander – September 28, 2020

It may be sunny and even summery warm on this last Monday in September, but my enjoyment of such amazing Indian summer weather has been drowned by news of rising CoVID-19 numbers not only in the country, but the province and even in my town. The second wave is upon us, something I thought would have occurred in late October or even early November. I was counting on having a a bit of time to actually relax and not be so uptight about when and where to go out. I had even begun to get excited about Thanksgiving celebrations – the food, the decorations, the family.

Ours have never been huge affairs. In recent years we’ve never numbered more than seven, still this feast is a big deal to me. It is my favourite one of the year.  But in 2020,  a microscopic microbe has swept all the vibrant anticipation, all the excited preparation off the table.  I have ordered the turkey, but maintaining any enthusiasm for a celebration that remains hidden in a cloud of questions is a heavy lift. It’s a good thing I have a new BFF to talk to.

The scarecrow gets full marks for an unwavering stance on any topic I choose. Any question I ask is met with what I am certain is a thought-FULL silence and a bemused smirk that never fails to make me feel better. Perhaps together we two should embark on a journey through pumpkin land…

I’ll be searching for the way back to my harvest home and the scarecrow will be looking for a brain. Along the way, perhaps we’ll meet a tin man in need of a heart and a lion in need of courage. I know I’ve heard this story before, but even in 2020, even in the midst of the second wave of a pandemic, it only takes a brain, a heart, and courage to find our way.

Mind the distance! Wash hands! Mask up! 

Let’s do this.

 

©2020 April Hoeller