Anchor Struck

I mentioned recently that winter is my least favourite season.  I’ve liked my

Canadian ones alright, what with the waterfalls and robust streams  But the

ones I experienced in the Midwest as I grew up really put me off.  I’ll never 

forget a January in Kansas when it didn’t get above zero F. (-15 C.) for two

weeks.

Further, life above the 49th Parallel means a lot of darkness to start and end

the year.  On the December solstice, our family and friends (and all others) in

the Bay Area and Kansas have 90 more minutes of daylight than we do.

So I inch through the cold, dark time by dividing it into manageable stretches.

The first one is from the time change in November until the solstice.  No matter

how much I prepare myself, the first week or so seems to me to have an hour

stolen out of the afternoon.  My despair is assuaged, however, by lots of football

to watch or look forward to.  And I could read a book if I needed to, I guess.

After the solstice, the light starts slipping back in.  Even at two minutes a day,

it’s soon perceptible.  The end of the second stretch is the 46th day of winter,

February 5th this year, the tipping point of winter.  From noon on, we’ll be on

the downhill side and coasting toward spring.  No wonder we mark this time of

year by exalting the groundhog.

By kick-off of the Super Bowl, my third, most manageable stretch will have

begun — the one until March 1st, the first day of spring in my cosmology.  I

realize that actual spring doesn’t start for another three weeks or so, but I need

a shorter winter and a longer primavera.  There’s still plenty of cold, nasty

weather left here at that time, so I came up with this to symbolically ignore it.

Too, March 1st was when I got married in 1966 for the first time, and when we

filed for divorce in 1974.  It’s also the day that the constitution of Finland was 

rewritten, plus the birthday of Canadians Alan Thicke and Justin Bieber.  One

does what one must to get through.