Last year, The New Yorker ran a cover by cartoonist Roz Chast that depicted an illustrated January calendar. It was called “Cruelest Month.” Each day featured a nasty winter event or plaintive exhortation. Flu. Ice Storm. Lost Keys in Snow. Why Me, Lord?
And, of course: Cabin Fever.
I kept that cover and put it on the bulletin board next to my desk at work. Its dark humor made me smile—and helped me get through January.
It’s a difficult month for several reasons. On the personal side, my father died a couple of weeks after Christmas, in 1980. So I always feel blue at the beginning of the month.
Many of us feel let down in the first weeks of the new year, after the hubbub of the holidays. I don’t get too excited about Christmas. Actually, I kind of go through the motions. Still, my focus is on seasonal doings. As an educator, I can look forward to some time off. Entering a new year is a milestone that can’t be ignored.
Then, suddenly, after all the lights and glitter and bonhomie disappear, we are in January. Gray, slushy January.
Retailers know our mood and immediately rush out the Valentine paraphernalia. Red hearts and chocolate are just the things to brighten the gloomy landscape. For some of us, perhaps. I am the type of person who celebrates holidays when they are supposed to be celebrated. I don’t eat Valentine’s candy until the day. I curl my lip at the displays until about a week before the holiday, when I finally succumb and buy stuff before it runs out.
Valentine’s Day is just a colorful blip in the grand trifecta of dark months—January, February and March. And it’s not even that for the lovelorn, who see the holiday as a mean joke. Really, they should eat all the heart-shaped candy they want right up until Feb. 14.
I think of January as the month of broken promises. In Maine, this is really a season, which can last from November through March. You know the drill: Every program, every meeting, every get-together has to have a snow date. Half of your plans get postponed or cancelled. When this happens constantly, as it does some years, I feel confused, and just a little dead inside. I can’t seem to get any momentum.
In the school world, winter weather can really have an impact. Last year, my district used so many snow days that we had to stay in school an extra hour a day for 10 days, and go in for a half-day that we were supposed to have off. That may not sound bad, but it was brutal.
And we didn’t even have to make up as much time as other districts, some of which continued the school year a full week longer than us.
Sometimes we have a snow day and a late start or early release in the same week. I then return to work wondering what I was doing when I was last there. There are days when it’s quite slippery, but the snow’s supposed to stop within an hour, so off we go to school. It takes half an hour to go five miles, and many of the buses are late.
As I am the head librarian in my district, I travel around to the various buildings. One day I was inching up a steep and winding hill to an elementary school, at a crawl. The snow was that heavy. As I approached the middle/high school on my way to the elementary school, I made an executive decision, and turned into the middle/high school. The elementary school visit would have to wait. Better safe than sorry.
I’m not complaining. There is nothing to do, of course, except soldier on. It’s Maine. It’s winter. We deal with it.
But as Roz Chast said of January 18th on her calendar: “Ugh.”
I was glad that , when we had a huge snowstorm in January, it happened on a holiday weekend. I did not have to wonder if school would be called off. I did not worry that we were going to use up all of our snow days again and have to make them up. It’s January. Where am I going, besides the cinema, which is my winter solace?
It was frigid that day. I tried to help my husband, Paul, with the shoveling, and I went great guns for awhile. But then my hands got cold. So cold they hurt. I tried wearing two pairs of gloves, to no avail. When I finally went into the house, I cried. My two dogs came to me and tried to lick my face. They were worried about me.
Roz Chast could have added to her calendar: “Fingers frozen.”
February is a short month. There’s a three-day weekend, a school vacation. Then there is March, which in some parts of the world, means spring has arrived. Here in Maine, it can be the snowiest time. There are no holidays or vacations. It is just a slog toward mud season.
My outlook was brightened, however, when I saw a preview of the cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine. It’s called “Winter Garden” and was drawn by Tom Gauld.
The cover depicts a woman watering a wild, beautiful garden. A black cat peers out from the foliage. And in the background, is a window. Outside, winter is raging.
I thought, when I saw it, “I can do this.” I will focus on the vivid colors of happiness, no matter how gray the sky gets.
But I can’t promise I’ll make it to April without saying “Ugh.”
Then, suddenly, after all the lights and glitter and bonhomie disappear, we are in January. Gray, slushy January.
Retailers know our mood and immediately rush out the Valentine paraphernalia. Red hearts and chocolate are just the things to brighten the gloomy landscape. For some of us, perhaps. I am the type of person who celebrates holidays when they are supposed to be celebrated. I don’t eat Valentine’s candy until the day. I curl my lip at the displays until about a week before the holiday, when I finally succumb and buy stuff before it runs out.
Valentine’s Day is just a colorful blip in the grand trifecta of dark months—January, February and March. And it’s not even that for the lovelorn, who see the holiday as a mean joke. Really, they should eat all the heart-shaped candy they want right up until Feb. 14.
I think of January as the month of broken promises. In Maine, this is really a season, which can last from November through March. You know the drill: Every program, every meeting, every get-together has to have a snow date. Half of your plans get postponed or cancelled. When this happens constantly, as it does some years, I feel confused, and just a little dead inside. I can’t seem to get any momentum.
In the school world, winter weather can really have an impact. Last year, my district used so many snow days that we had to stay in school an extra hour a day for 10 days, and go in for a half-day that we were supposed to have off. That may not sound bad, but it was brutal.
And we didn’t even have to make up as much time as other districts, some of which continued the school year a full week longer than us.
Sometimes we have a snow day and a late start or early release in the same week. I then return to work wondering what I was doing when I was last there. There are days when it’s quite slippery, but the snow’s supposed to stop within an hour, so off we go to school. It takes half an hour to go five miles, and many of the buses are late.
As I am the head librarian in my district, I travel around to the various buildings. One day I was inching up a steep and winding hill to an elementary school, at a crawl. The snow was that heavy. As I approached the middle/high school on my way to the elementary school, I made an executive decision, and turned into the middle/high school. The elementary school visit would have to wait. Better safe than sorry.
I’m not complaining. There is nothing to do, of course, except soldier on. It’s Maine. It’s winter. We deal with it.
But as Roz Chast said of January 18th on her calendar: “Ugh.”
I was glad that , when we had a huge snowstorm in January, it happened on a holiday weekend. I did not have to wonder if school would be called off. I did not worry that we were going to use up all of our snow days again and have to make them up. It’s January. Where am I going, besides the cinema, which is my winter solace?
It was frigid that day. I tried to help my husband, Paul, with the shoveling, and I went great guns for awhile. But then my hands got cold. So cold they hurt. I tried wearing two pairs of gloves, to no avail. When I finally went into the house, I cried. My two dogs came to me and tried to lick my face. They were worried about me.
Roz Chast could have added to her calendar: “Fingers frozen.”
February is a short month. There’s a three-day weekend, a school vacation. Then there is March, which in some parts of the world, means spring has arrived. Here in Maine, it can be the snowiest time. There are no holidays or vacations. It is just a slog toward mud season.
My outlook was brightened, however, when I saw a preview of the cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine. It’s called “Winter Garden” and was drawn by Tom Gauld.
The cover depicts a woman watering a wild, beautiful garden. A black cat peers out from the foliage. And in the background, is a window. Outside, winter is raging.
I thought, when I saw it, “I can do this.” I will focus on the vivid colors of happiness, no matter how gray the sky gets.
But I can’t promise I’ll make it to April without saying “Ugh.”
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