This post is going to be tangential and its argument will meander.
You have been warned.
Proceed.
Winter has really got to let go.
Spotlight hog. Take a hint from Elsa and go back to the mountains where you belong, at least until you can get yourself under control. Your constant reprisals are becoming less and less a natural denouement and more and more a cry of hysterical self-centeredness.
Pretty, Elsa. Very pretty. And also outrageously selfish. Get it together, woman.
We get to this point in Philly every year during March, when the unmitigating cruelty of winter begins to cramp our style (sartorial and otherwise). This should be the time of year that stores hearken to our American Cult of Consumerism and offer mad sales, beckoning us out of our wintertime dens to find SOMETHING ELSE TO WEAR besides the same 6 sweaters that have been on rotation since October, when we were so naive and delighted to cuddle up in wool.
I hate wool. I hate sweaters. I hate socks. I hate coats. I hate gloves. I hate you, winter. Go away.
Don't be fooled
by the comfy sweaters
because they're probably itchy and pilled. #honest
I walked to the coffeeshop today (I'm delighted that this habit I picked up in the foothills of the Rockies years ago has stuck with me. File this under "things I couldn't do if I had children.") through the barren and post-apocalyptic-like atmosphere of Philadelphian March: no green, no sun, bundled up anti-social people, and potholes sprinkling the street like island nations, the aftermath of natural phenomenon (in this case: of snowstorms instead of volcanos).
Hades must have plied Persephone with an inordinate amount of pomegranate wine this year, because she has clearly passed out on some chaise lounge in the corner of the halls of the Underworld Palace. She has utterly overstayed her visit and has neither called nor texted her mother with any check-in of well being, much less an ETA. Because Demeter is beside herself over the absence of her daughter and has COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN to kick the Spring Season into gear. I checked the all-knowing iPhone weather app and warmth - real, genuine, you-don't-need-a-parka warmth is not even on the week-long horizon. Abandon hope!
Mom! Take me back aboveground! This winter has been hell!
So, I say to myself, mistress of spin. How do you look on the bright side here?
Well, it's easy.
I thought about my own mom.
If I went away for six months without letting her know how I was, she probably really would initiate the apocalypse. I know not everyone is blessed enough to have the type of unconditional-love-but-let-you-live-your-own-life-but-call-and-tell-me-about-it kind of mother that I have, but if you do, you're lucky. I inadvertently pulled up an old email from mom, back from my unemployed-bohemian-in-Boulder days, where a very old Blogspot post made her smile.
I was in the throes of job-search-futility-despair (which means, so was she), but it would appear I was still hopeful and merry.
And not much has changed, really, with me. I haven't really changed since then.
Occasionally resting on the road of life: all horizon; no destination. Yet.
I read a St. Augustine quote today, while still cobbling together the new website for St. Augustine Parish (you know...one of my never-ending stream of side-gigs that I fill my life with in order to feel relevant and avoid things I don't want to face). It really hit home:
“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”
And yet again, I think that St. Augustine could have been my soul mate. Except for that whole celibate (eventually) priest thing. (note: I also think Oscar Wilde could have been my soul mate, except for that he didn't like girls. And Benedick could have been my soul mate, except for that whole fictional-character thing.)
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Anger and Courage. I'd say, in general, I'm pretty choc full of hope, and anger. My courage has always been a bit of a shy bird, but sometimes I manage to coax her out of the nest. Or, more truthfully, I manage to ask my mother or friends to push her out. I can't often do it all on my own.
But you know what?
She flies, every time.
