a Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

I’ve got winter of the brain. Outside we still have snow malingering in clumpy piles, melted just enough to reveal evidence of canine habitation, but not melted enough for me to make the mistake that spring is on its way. I still need a winter coat when I feed the horses. The hose still needs coaxing before it works. Our furnace still hums. Kids still need to find hats and gloves every morning before school.

This is a winter that never quite began and now it won’t quite end. I remember only a few moments of sitting on the couch watching flakes float down, sipping coffee and listening to happy boys celebrate a day off from school. We never got the dumper the weather stations kept promising was right around the corner. We got a few inches, slush, long gray days.

Winter is wearing me out. I need sun, warmth, lighter clothing, sandals, and iced drinks. Right now everything looks cluttered and impossible, both inside the house and out, but I know that a temperate afternoon will lighten things considerably, without me actually having to clean the refrigerator or sort the recycling. I need the youngest boy to wander the yard, excavating with his shovel and dump truck while I sit on the porch steps and finish an article. Not just start it, but finish it. Warmer weather makes things more likely. I need that boost.

Instead, I slog. I make my to-do list, I recognize impossibility, I eat a cookie for breakfast.

I know. Soon it really will be spring and I won’t quite recall how miserable this soggy, liminal space between seasons really is. Until then, though, lemon bars gratefully accepted.