January Starts

We started the year with a record-breaking cold snap -- 13 or 14 nights in a row with temperatures below freezing. People around here don't have any stamina for these bitter days and in this, I have become one of them.

Finally, yesterday Duncan and I took a walk after work and watched the sky go light pink as the sun faded and it was a great relief to be outside and think it was pleasant. And to notice that it was after work and not dark yet. The days get longer by nearly a minute every day, I heard. It's beginning to make a difference.

Claire gave me a wonderful book for my birthday -- When Wanderers Cease to Roam by Vivian Swift. It is a creative woman's journal notations and water color sketches for a year. Vivian says January is the Warrior month because it takes a warrior to soldier through these cold, dark, harsh January days. She goes on to say this must be why the Romans put January at the head of the calendar, the better to teach the most important lesson of the year, that: What it takes to get through January is what it takes to get through Life.

That may well be, but it was Duncan who saved my bacon on Sunday morning when we woke up with frozen pipes. He used a heat gun (who knew we even had a heat gun?) and thawed them out in about 10 minutes.

Tuesday a strong earthquake erupted in Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Most of the island is in rubble. That is all the news and heartbreaking.