It is February, but not, and we are all waiting for the other shoe to drop. Allen and I made bets: I said we would have one only more big storm (of 12 inches) this winter and he said we would have two of eight inches each.
But today it is once again in the 40s. The snow melts, the brooks rise. We passed a tree that looked like it was ready to bud. My mother-in-law has daffodils coming up already. This is not February. And I’m not complaining but you must understand that what I fear is we will get used to these mild days and then the wind will whip down from Canada and we will be lost in icy fingers.
It is February but not and I am unhinged and seek solace and inspiration wherever I can find it. When I feel this way, I turn to Annie Dillard for she never disappoints. Here from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
It snowed. It snowed all yesterday and never emptied the sky, although the clouds looked so low and heavy they might drop all at once with a thud. The light is diffuse and hueless, like the light on paper inside a pewter bowl. The snow looks light and the sky dark, but in fact the sky is lighter than the snow. Obviously the thing illuminated cannot be lighter than its illuminator. The classical demonstration of this point involves simply laying a mirror flat on the snow so that it reflects in its surface the sky, and comparing by sight this value to that of the snow. This is all very well, even conclusive, but the illusion persists. The dark is overhead and the light is at my feet, I’m walking upside-down in the sky.
myfanwy collins 