the long, hard winter, right?

I don't want to complain.

It's been what the locals call a "proper" winter.  It's been long.  I've gotten the car deeply stuck in snow and ice on two occasions. I've been afraid to leave the house.  I've felt my motivation shrivel up to nothing. 

And it always seems that March will be a turning point, right?  That the worst will be over. 

But our first week of March will start off with snow, and negative temperatures. 

In like a lion, out like a lamb, right?  Let's hope.

Hope is what I'm doing now, putting all my eggs in one basket, pinning all my dreams on spring. Spring, like love, never fails. (Right?)

Those nights when I go out to shut the chickens in their coop, to protect them against the dreadful possum (don't they remind you of Rodents Of Unusual Size?) -- some of those nights, the sky is clear and dazzling.  And my gratitude rises almost visible, like my breath in the cold, like a deep exhale from my heart.

I wrote about this long winter, about the Little House on the Prairie books, about TS Eliot and Kathleen Norris, and about my acedia.  You can read it at Art House America today.

(PS: I've also been writing for Christ and Pop Culture again - most recently, about the TV show The Fosters.)