Oh January, you are a difficult teacher.
We’re slogging through rain and gray.
In the western U.S., we’re deep into a damp season. In California, floods and storms batter entire towns. In Oregon, where I live, rain is nothing unusual but this year we’ve seen an especially cold and soaking gloom. It seems weeks since we’ve seen the sun, though I know that can’t be true. We search the sky for pinholes of light, patches of blue that surely exist beyond the steady gray.
In this wintering, I turn inward again. Make something of this season, I say, and nudge myself into words and books, pen and page.
Postcard poems feel like a comforting container right now — small enough to manage and not large enough to daunt. Rendering just a few lines matches the season, and my mood, too.
These are my spare days: monochromatic sky, the outline of trees, a stencil of thought.
What gets you through these darker days? Have you a trick or tease, a form you fancy, something to nudge you forward when the (real or metaphorical) weather pulls you back?
In this wintering, what are you making?
If you like this blog, please subscribe here for delivery directly to your email. And please share on your social network of choice or forward to a friend.
The world turns on words, please read & write.