Surreality

This time of year is hard on me. I spent the last few weeks baking, wrapping gifts and watching the light dim. It seems, though it may be my imagination, that the days still grow shorter through the evenings, but lengthen first on the morning side. So it takes a while for the afternoon light to catch up with the fact that the solstice is past... Around mid-February, I will notice that it's still light when Tom gets home, and then I really get excited about the plants that are pushing up in the garden. The daffodils will come first, about the time the heathers are starting to fade. I have a few crocuses that may show up slightly ahead, but they are not as vigorous and harder to notice.

So right now -- as I contemplate the earth's calendar, which is not my own, I want to just hibernate. But this is the time of year that Tom and the boys want to ski, to go to movies and skating -- to be active. So I dutifully go along, sitting in the lodge and knitting while they ski, or just stay home and read while they do other activities.

It gives these coming two months a sense of -- not quite unreality, more of a surreality, as everyone else seems to be living their lives while I move through a gelatinous world, moving in slow motion, watching things happen around me, waiting for the first sign of Life to come!