January

    

 I saw this today on a friend's FB post and thought it worth copying and keeping here.   

 Patricia Highsmith                The Price of Salt    

January.   It was all things.   And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. J  anuary was moments, and January was a year.   January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory.   Every human action seemed to yield a magic. January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester's bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define.

iWe continue here in arctic cold,  single digits overnight and maybe up to 20 degrees for an hour or so mid afternoons, if the sunshines.  No snow,which is  fine with me because it saves me $$.  I don't have to pay for plowing my driveway.  Still some mounds of snow remain in small patches, they are frozen ice mii hills.  Talking with a friend yesterdzy znd we agreed, " well  we just have to endure."  That's similar to living as a widow, we endure, we carry on, we survive.  

Today is Thursday, January 8.  But it took me until nearly 10:15 AMto realize that.  For some reason I woke up sure it was Friday and so began my day.  Since I do not eat meeat on Fridays I got a few shrimp out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, intending on making some pasta in garlick sauce with lemon , capers, and the shrimp.  I was astonished to figure out it is only Thursday but that is going to be my dinner anyway since the shrimp are thawing.  How did I lose a day?  There's a term for losing track of time, "time blindness", and in it's extremes it could be problematic.  Mostly if I lose track of time it's while I continue doing something like reading, going through photos, gardening, whatever that has me so engrossed that time flew by.  And it's later than I thought.   But never before have I lost a day!  Then again I was so happy that I gained an entire day back!  Oh it's these simple things that keep me going.  

I should be downstairs finishing up putting away the last of the Christmas decor but here I am at laptop, sharing my thoughts.  Tomorrow is another day, I tell me. And no one contradicts me, nor does anyone ask me what I'm doing now.   

PS  I cannot figure out why this post is not just plain text but outlined in white??? I'm tired of trying to fix it so here it goes.