Seasons and Calendars

This morning I carried the ornament box up from the basement.  Bills that languished on my desk were opened, checks written, note made to buy stamps (did I really send out that many Christmas cards?).  I turned on my stereo (yes, I am still iPodless) and played Christmas music one more time.  It's ok, it's only January 2nd.  Doesn't some religion celebrate Christmas in early January?  Thank you notes are written to sad Celtic Christmas music.

I check mountain pass reports, half expecting that all the snow from Wednesday, when it was still December, is melted by today, two days into January.  With new calendars hung (yes, I am still old fashioned and actually hang calendars rather than rely on my computer), I half expect it to be a new season.

But we are still in winter.  In reality, we are only a few days into that season.  Long nights, short days, darkness by the late afternoon walk with my dog.  We've had a series of unusual snow storms here in Seattle, all which has finally melted and we are back to our usual gray weather.

In less than 18 days there will be another change, a new President and his administration.  Barack Obama ran an enormously successful campaign on themes of hope and change.  Unlike any candidate I have seen since John F. Kennedy or maybe Ronald Reagan, Obama has engendered an adoration that still seems to linger even among the most cynical of my friends.  He carries so many expectations on his shoulders.  And in this severest of political and economic winters, where it seems policies are frozen and entrenched, the economy seems unable to provide refuge to even the most privileged among us, Obama and his advisors have their work cut out for them.  To thaw international hostilities built over hundreds of years, to unwind economic disasters, to help people find a sense of well being in this frozen landscape.

It will still be winter when Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20th.  The calendar says it will be two more months until we can begin to see signs of Spring.  But somehow as I put up new calendars and began cleaning from the holidays I felt as if this winter, maybe just this winter, there would be a warm wind blowing mid-month.