Counting down days until spring
This is my least favorite week of the year – of this year and most other years.
I hit an emotional gully after Christmas. Because I’m not much for New Year’s Eve celebrating, the final days of December drop with a thud, and there’s no bounce of anticipation for the next holiday. I don’t remember the last time I stayed awake to welcome the new year; if that makes me sound like I’m stuck in mud, you’re right. There’s no pulling me out until spring.
When my son was in preschool, his teacher pulled me aside one day.
“He’s an outside boy,” she said; that surprised me because it never occurred to me there were 4-year-old boys who were inside boys. I’m reminded of that now because I’m both an outside girl and, more to the point, a spring and summer girl. The days I’m happiest are those when the sun is shining and I’m on my bike.
Last year’s biking season started in early April. It was rare that I missed a day on the trail through the spring and summer and fall. It wasn’t until mid-November that I finally took the bike rack off my car, and I only did that because I was about to have surgery on my knee.
The car looks naked now, and it’s not as easily spotted in a parking lot. The country has been flooded with white SUVs; though shabby, that bike rack made the car stand out in the crowd.
After the storms of last week, my Forester is a car-shaped block of salt and grime. I thought about taking it to the car wash, but my usual winter grump interrupted and reminded me it’s not even January yet. More snow will come, so what’s the point?
The other signs of the post-Christmas doldrums are all around. My hardwood floors are spotted from the dirty snow the dog and I track in; the tree lights never did fully light up and I am ready to take the whole thing down; I got tired of the book I started reading a few days ago and have tossed it aside, and ditto the scarf I started to knit.
Maybe most emblematic of this week, though, is the one tired pizzelle left on the cookie tray. Every time I pass the counter I see it there and think about putting it out of its misery. I could dunk it in coffee, or just toss it. There was no way it could compete with the brownies and the coconut gobs on that tray. I still have a little pang of pining about that. Those gobs were delicious.
There are places in the world where summer never leaves. Maybe someday I will live in one of those places, but if you’re thinking Florida, that wouldn’t be it. I don’t much like Florida, so where?
For now, though, there are three months of Pennsylvania winter to endure. I’ll drop my chin and plow ahead, getting back to work in a few days and maybe riding the indoor bike to pass the weeks. A few years ago I bought one of those light boxes that can help people with seasonal affective disorder. Maybe I’ll go out to the garage and try to find where I put that when I moved here.
But I don’t think I have that mental health disorder. I just have the thing where I don’t like winter. Don’t we all have that – the pining for the warm sunshine falling on our shoulders? We’ll have that again one day.
Until then, head down and slog ahead. Eat that tired pizzelle. It’s the last cookie of the year.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.