Growing Versions

So much of getting through the winter involves the   h   o   r   i   z   o   n   t   a   l. Sleeping. Getting from point A to B and back again. One step in front of the other. S p r i n g i s a w a k e n i n g t h e v e r t i c a l. Wake up. Look up.

 This time of year is trying. It tests our nerves as we are hemmed in by frozen banks of hardened snow. We obsess about keeping warm and every step we take requires a calculation. But a warm day comes along when we don't have to try so hard for an afternoon or a morning.  It gives us hope that the trying season is about give up.

We experienced a pile up of a combination of snow days, strike days and sick days. We got inside our house and stayed there for days on end.  Sometimes we made messes. Sometimes we cleaned them up. Sometimes we staggered into Blizzard conditions. Others we buried our whole bodies under all the blankets and stuffies and pillows in the house. We are still digging out from the very bottom of the pile, scraping from the bowl and leaning into the melting ice packed all around. Drip. Drip. Drip.

 We are slowly,  (for some too slowly) melting free.

The need for tunnel thinking, required to cope with walking through snow drifts and rain, is dissipating.

The surface has well and truly been cracked. Cracked by boots and separated for another season by sunshine, the shards of ice glisten while they can.