Notes from the Pond by Sheila Dobbie

[slideshow]I have not kept up with my monthly calendar coloring book series this month because January is such a dull, boring—blue—month.

The skies are a cold gun-metal gray. The snows, which seem to come in a never-ending barrage, soon turn from a virgin, bridal white to a dirty, dingy, ugly gray/black. The soul and mood have become dormant waiting for the renewal of sun’s warmth. The psyche takes on a blue color. Not the brilliant blue of clear skies on a sunny day or the clear blue of the ocean but more of the dull, lifeless blue/gray of a battle weary Confederate soldier’s uniform. The landscape appears flat with the white snow fading into shadows and blending with the dark storm clouds above.

All of nature is asleep buried under a frozen world. The fountains in the pond, which lend an air of excitement when coming through the entrance, have been removed and stored where they will be cleaned and lubricated before spring. With no fountains it seems the life has been sucked out of the neighborhood. Now the entrance is quiet, motionless, deserted. No ducks on the pond, no muskrats swimming about, there is only a wide expanse of frozen water. The streets are plowed of the snow leaving a three to four foot bank of snow bordering the sides; ice, snow and slush remain on the streets making walking difficult.

Shakespeare said, “Now is the winter of our discontent,” which seems to fit my mood perfectly; a mood of being discontent about almost everything current and a yearning for warmer and sunnier days. However, Percy Bysshe Shelley offers us hope in his saying, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” So we wait and wait for the first glimmer of spring.

In my search for quotes about winter the one most fitting is by Robert Byrne when he said, “winter is nature’s way of saying, ‘up yours’”. I can’t seem to improve upon that.

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