The cruel month of January

I manage December, enter January, and each year, I think, “I did it!” I got through the slowly dying days. Soon the longer days of late winter and spring will appear. I can get my life from the sunshine, from working the dirt, from leisurely walks.

One would think I would know by now that January always puts a lie to my hopes.

Despite the passing of the winter solstice, the days stubbornly refuse to get longer. The clouds obscure sun, gray rains take over the days, grayness takes over my soul.

I clean out the leaves from the pool skimmers yet once more, despairing over the fact that the pool will be cluttered with plant debris for months yet.

First, the fall leaves land in it. Then, because of the exceptionally hard frosts, now the live oaks, generally stable until late February, sadly drop their green halo. The winds grab the too-soon, too-brown pointed leathery droppings and aim for the pool as the final resting place. Despairingly, I note the bulk of them is yet to come, followed by the flowering trees and bushes. The magnetic power of water pulls all those spent flowers to momentarily grace the top, and then fall, rotting and difficult to clear, to the bottom.

Most flower pots have been cleaned out and filled with fresh dirt for spring planting. Some spouts grasses that may, maybe, survive the winter and green again in the spring. Some nestle bulbs that might, yes might, give late winter color. Now, they are just brown. Brown . . . everywhere I turn.

My desk looks like the pool, the hopeless battleground for my soul.

We sat down and planned a budget for this year. Full of good intentions, I resolve to seriously track how we spend our funds. Armed with complex spreadsheets, I’m prepared to dance with the financial demons. But it’s January. By the time energy returns, usually around the middle of February, it may be too late.

What did our ancestors do during these long, wet, dreary days? They, with lives lit only by candle or burning oil, could not push back the January darkness the way I try, turning on every single light in the house. I have a house full of books to be quiet companions, and TV, should I wish it, to aid in distraction. They don’t help much, but they are available.

What did they do? I wonder if they just gave up and slept 20 hours a day. It seems a good solution right now.

I know this will pass.

Grey, wet, cold or not, I will force myself to walk today. Gloved, hatted, and scarved, I’ll see if I can find the rhythms of walking to bring cheer. I’ll remind myself of the privilege I have to have a body still able to move freely. Perhaps in those rhythms, I’ll find the joy in prayer again, the awareness of the God-is-with-us hope that has sustained me my entire life and finds the sacred in the normal.

Then perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll make a dent in the desk. I know I will gain energy by reducing some of the piles, by dealing with the paper that forever nibbles at the edge of my consciousness.

But it’s January. Sigh.