This winter is NOT crawling by.  I have no idea why this winter doesn’t seem glacial in pace and temperature as it usually does but it has been moving right along for me this year.  No down days, no frustration with the gloom.  I’m good. I’m alright and it is February. This time, staying home was not only the logical thing to do (with the dollar as it is) but it seemed right on so many other levels as well. Put succinctly, I have enjoyed this slow winter, the tumble on the stairs excepted of course.

Part of it, I think, is that, if you travel 3 winter times out of four, then the fourth time staying put is almost as much a change as the travel was.  Change by way of no change.

Another reason was that it has been a very changing winter.  We were cold in November. Snow in December.  January went by unnoticed. It is warm in February. That’s odd.  Light is also noticeably increasing in February, usually the bleakest month for me, and I am more aware of it this time for some reason. The word ‘spring’ seems almost reasonable to utter.

As any long time reader knows, Sal and I get along.  And we get along even when cooped up in small spaces.  We knew this about ourselves.  We lived 11 years on sailboats.  It was easy.  Could do it again in a flash.  We could likely live for a long weekend in a walk-in closet without much problem. And the real whackiness, is that we would enjoy that time!

Compatibility is more an art than a science but, in that sense, we are masters and could present at the Louvre.  Sal could teach that kind of art.  I would be the foil that she uses to prove her genius.

Right now, it is teeming.  Has been all night.  Windy, blowy, rainy, noisy and relentless. Sal is busy quilting.  Busy like a squirrel with nuts.  She doesn’t even notice me.  I am reading, writing and dreaming and thinking.  I am planning and investigating on Google.  I have lots and lots of thoughts and I am like a nut with squirrels in my head. Now THAT’S compatibility!

I would like for all this to continue for as long as possible.  Thirty more years would be good but my family sported an early best-before date genealogically speaking. Thirty is unrealistic.  Statistically I am in the ‘dead zone’ now and so twenty more will be a very fine run if I can make it.  Even that will be setting a new record for both my mom’s family (average lifespan under 60) and my father’s (average lifespan early 80’s).

Oh, don’t be silly!  I am not thinking ‘end of days’.  I am not morbid although, as I recall, it is the month for such thoughts.  I am just musing on time, weather, life and our place in it all. maybe it is time to start saying the ‘S’ word.  Spring is just around the corner and I, for one, am looking forward to it despite not hating winter this year.

Geez, could it be that I am just basically happy?