Snow Cat (Photo credit: clickclique)
Nothing is wrong and yet nothing is actually all right. A most annoying state of being that plagues me of late and is contributing to a general lack of … what is the opposite of “inertia”? Ertia? Probably not, but still a state of general non-interest and lack of motivation.
Attribution for this could conveniently be laid at the foothills of the longest winter I can remember. Four months and it’s not even Valentine’s Day.
“It’s actually only three months,” my husband pointed out as he readied to leave for work this morning.
“We’ve had snow since before Halloween,” I said.
“Barely,” he countered.
And by “barely” he means we didn’t have snow that stuck until the snowstorm that descended as Dee and I cased the hamlet for treats on Halloween, but we had snow on and off for over a week before that first big dump. To my mind that puts us nearly to the four-month mark.
“It hasn’t been too brutal,” he reminded me as he left.
And by “brutal” he means gods-awful-fucking-cold … by Canadian standards. Far north Canadian standards. Pioneer days don your bear skin coat and tie a rope between the cabin and the stable so you don’t get lost and freeze solid type of winter.
Even though he is right, in a purely technical sense, it’s still been the longest winter I can recall, and I am past the point of sanguine acceptance, pushing firmly up against being completely and irrevocably done with it.
Still, I don’t think that winter fed-up’d-ness is entirely all that is in play in terms of my Shakespearean mood.
The limitations of my surroundings play into it. The hamlet hasn’t any walking paths, or even sidewalks, so I am forced to trek into town to the fitness centre to walk. Something I am doing with regularity but not without resentment.
I’ve overdosed myself on teaching, which I am in the process of remediating, but still have a few obligations to complete before taking a break. Though I always enjoy a class once I get there and begin, I find that it’s harder and harder to pump myself up to teach, a sure enough sign of burn out.
Some of the weariness rests all about me in boxes and piles that scream to be sorted, organized and purged. There is nothing I dislike more than under the surface tidying up and cleaning. I am great with the superficial aspects. I can vacuum, launder, clear off this or that surface, render it accessible for use again, and clothes, mostly get folded and put away. However, the kind of purging that borders on excavation is something that only extreme situations like moving, for example, are likely to push me towards.
It could be the near absence of a social life. Although I am the least social person I know, aside from my husband, the fact that our only getting out of late is either related to soccer matches or children’s birthdays might be nagging at me a bit. But this leads back to issues finding babysitters (our last one grew up) and settling on things to do. Dining out and movies just don’t appeal and we are not pub people. And, of course, there is the problem of having to drive a fair ways before hitting upon anywhere that one would normally associate with a “night out” and finally culminates in my general laziness and indifference to venturing out at all when the degree of difficulty in doing so rises about “moderate”.
Or maybe it’s just February.
Related articles
- The winter isn’t quite so full of discontent, suddenly (agoldoffish.wordpress.com)
- the winter of my discontent (smithintravel.wordpress.com)
- Melting Snow (Footsteps in the Snow) (thedailyjorge.wordpress.com)
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