Farewell February

I call February an in-between month.  

The calendar drops February midway between those times of the year when I am particularly energized: between the December holidays and the arrival of spring. Hovering some distance short of the vernal equinox and still distant from the excitement of the holidays, which by February have become a dim memory, I feel about the month that the world has shut down.

I know critters shut down some during February. Geese, usually chatty and gregarious, now hunker down silently on the ice, feathers solemnly tucked in tight by their bodies, beaks to the wind pointing like weather vanes into the blow. As the creek freezes, it's an especially tough time for Herons who can't fish through the thick ice. Out getting firewood the other day I found a bat. He’d rolled up in the woodpile wedged between logs as tightly as he could manage. His fir had ice on it but when I poked him, he moved slightly. He barred his teeth and feebly, hissed at me. He was annoyed with me for waking him up.

I like building fires in the fireplace and settling down with a good book in February.  The open fire unfortunately draws most of the heat from the house so it’s imperative I stay close to the fire. I dare not wander far from it. February can get claustrophobic.

A fit of cabin fever seized me one day. Photography offers me reasons to go outdoors. Bundling up I grabbed a camera, and went outside looking for pictures. Except for the pale grasses, the russet forest floor and the green stands of conifer trees, the landscape seemed denuded and colorless.

Walking along the edges of the creek, I saw small culverts, tiny streams and puddles where frozen ice produced stunning visual delights, delicate swirls, flourishes and supple textures like glaziers produce from molten glass.

As the ice forms, it arranges itself around unremarkable natural objects and sets them apart, discretely; the way jewelers meticulously place their finest pieces on silken pillows, providing the proper backdrop to showcase their beauty. The result is to see something as common as small stones, individual leaves, broken sticks and even pine needles in remarkably new and marvelous settings. Frozen in the ice, their individuality and character are revealed and I can see that the infrastructure of nature is especially stunning when its parts are framed in space and viewed singly.  “For it is only framed in space,” wrote Anne Morrow Lindbergh, "that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant–and therefore beautiful."

The months of our years, although they come and go cyclically, may also have a forward thrust, that is to say, each month points us ahead to something for the equilibrium of our spirits as much to insure the balance of nature.

I suspect that February is that peculiarly in-between time when, since there is little going on to excite us outwardly, slowed down during this sedentary time of year as the bat was, our inner vision may grow more acute and we can behold in the smaller things like ice, rocks, leaves, and pine needles the wonder of the greater.

For all that, I’m still ready for spring.