February

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Those are the words of T.S. Eliot, another Big Fat Liar. I know that he is a liar because you cannot get any crueler than February. And anyway, he cannot even spell “cruelest” correctly.

February is sooo cold! Yes, it is fifty degrees today. But I am sure that it will be freezing cold tomorrow. February is the month when the thermometer, unless it is digital, dips down to below zero! A digital cannot dip. No, it has not done that this year, but it used to do it all the time. I remember clearly from my childhood that it was always below zero for the entire month of February.

By the way, I now have a wireless digital thermometer which can track these things. It keeps a record of the prior low temperature, so you cannot sneak these things by me any more. It sends secret radio waves from just outside my front door to the warmth of my kitchen. It has the capability of receiving these mysterious waves from two more places on my vast estate. But I do not think that I live in a variable temperature zone, so I have not yet sprung for the additional monitors. But it does not take anything digital to know how bad February is.

If February is the cruelest month, then March is the crueler month – sort of like “second worst.” In March, you think it will be spring-like, but it never is. It is just rainy and muddy.

I solve the March problem by heading to Florida to watch my beloved Red Sox. That is not “my beloved” like we talk about at Shalom Mountain. No, it is much bigger than that.

I do have a problem though. I also have a new digital answering machine, which sits right beside my digital thermometer. Theoretically, I can call the answering machine from Florida and check on my messages. In the past, I have never figured out how to do this. But if it works, maybe I could also find out the temperature when I call in. I am not sure what the link should be. Is it Ethernet, USB cable or some other connection? I do not know anything about any of those.

Since I will be in Florida for part of March, you will not receive a March newsletter. This issue automatically becomes a double issue – perhaps twice as good, if not twice as long. So I will tell you all you need to know about April. April is the “pretend Spring” month. Try to convince yourself that it is Spring because New England does not have a Spring. If you want Spring, head south.

All of this “month” nonsense can be avoided by attending the Gatherings in March and April. We do much more than talk about the weather. Come prove to the Big Fat Liar T. S. Eliot that we do not live in a wasteland. Come and join in.

Just Desserts

The Saturday night Gathering in January was just full of great energy. Was it the food? Was it the process? Was it the people? Was it the music and dancing? Was it the warm fire? Was it a combination or all of these? Who knows. I only know that it was a great night.

Personally, it was the food that did it for me. Sometimes our culinary spread is sparse, but not that night. The desserts (again, my personal favorites) were wonderful, including two cakes! Only the dessert buffet at a Las Vegas hotel could have been better. Or maybe the midnight dessert buffet on a cruise ship sailing by a lava flow dumping into the sea in Hawaii. That was fun too. I am sorry, but I do not have the space to tell all of my dessert stories.

For other people, the highlight of the Gathering was connecting with new and old Shalom friends. Personally, I do not like people much. Desserts are so much more dependable. I have never met a jelly donut that I did not like. Glazed crullers do not fail to return your phone calls. Coffee cake muffins do not break your heart. Molten chocolate cake with crème anglaise asks nothing of you but ecstasy.

Only 13 folks showed up for the December Gathering and your editor was discouraged. We had a wonderful night creating a special altar and so many missed it. Why don’t they come? How can we lure them in? Are we doing the wrong things? We know that you cannot get this intimacy anywhere else. Why wouldn’t they want to be there?

These were the questions that swirled in the small mind of your editor. Ergo, the sensitive headline was planned -WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? - a real attention grabber that surely would turn the tide (and set off your Net Nanny.)

But you anticipated and responded in advance of such a gutter like, scandalous, cheap, journalistic device. You came to the January Gathering in all of your glory and spared your editor from embarrassing himself. Of course, it is hard to embarrass him. After the fifth Krispy Kreme he does not feel a thing.

Winter

Winter is arriving at this very moment. A cold front is working its way across New England to the Seacoast. The early morning forecast said the high would be forty two degrees today. But it was fifty eight degrees when I checked. Even weatherbug.com could not get it right. But now, two hours later, the temperature has dropped to forty four degrees. And the forecast holds the possibility of snow.

We have been blessed with spectacular weather here in New England for the last three months. It made me wonder what the big deal was about winter. It has not even felt Fall-like. Maybe winter would be similarly postponed or even skipped all together. Maybe I could leave the heavy jackets in the back of the closet. Maybe the sun will continue to shine every day.

No. Today started dark and got darker. The sky resembles the stirred froth of the nearby sea. The trees that have held tight to last leaves of color are surrendering to the wind and the rain. The empty trunks and limbs stand and sway with no excitement. Spring is a long way off.

New Englanders pretend to like winter, but for most that is a big lie. We depend on the holidays in November and December to get us through the first part. And then we look for some piece of hope to help us endure January and February. Maybe it is skiing. Maybe it is Florida. Maybe it is the mall. If only we can make it to March. But of course March turns out to be the worst month of all. Spring does not arrive and the world turns to mud.

So a long winter begins this morning. I am working hard not to be governed by that thought. I want to ignore it, to rise above it. I want to say that I am strong enough to get through it with a perky attitude. This year will feel different. I will not feel house bound when it gets cold and the streets are filled with slush. I will not feel put upon by lousy weather. It may be storming outside, but inside I will be happy and cheery. I am bigger than the weather. It should not affect my life. I will be strong.

But I know better. I know that there will be some additional struggles for me. People ask me if I have Seasonal Affective Disorder caused by a lack of light. I reply no, I can be miserable in all seasons. I am an equal opportunity employer when it comes to suffering.

In truth, my problem today is not the weather. My problem is that I am tired, and tired is not a good place for me to be. But I have decided that today’s malaise should be blamed on the weather. In fact, it is the fault of the weather reporting service. I am mad at them for getting the forecast wrong. I cannot find anyone else to get angry at, so they will do. And by the way, I am not angry, only tired. And if the power had not gone out in the middle of my writing this, I would be done by now. Perhaps not as tired. No I am not angry.

And I am not sad. I do not know why the Chopin piece that my wife is now playing on the piano makes me want to cry. I should be happy. I have no reason to be sad. No I am not sad or angry. I am only unhappy. Unhappy does not have anything to do with feeling. It is just a place of lack of joy. That’s all. I know that those feelings are overrated. To live with a lack is better than living in those distasteful, negative feelings.

I guess that I really have it all figured out now. I will just skate (a cold, winter metaphor) through the next few months. I will be fine, just fine.

August

August, the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Did you know that it was originally the sixth month in the Roman year, which began with March, and was originally named Sextilis (from Latin sextus, “sixth”)? So if things had not been shuffled, then August probably now would be called the month of Sex. That certainly would have changed things!

It was given its present name in honor of the emperor Augustus. To make it equal to the fifth month, the name of which had been changed from Quintilis to Julius in honor of Julius Caesar, a day was taken from the month of February and added to August. So that means that before the name change leap year would have had February 30. It would have been great to be born on February 30.

Do you think that Roman school kids had to start worrying about going back to school in the month of Augustus? Did they worry about how they would do at roman numerals? Did they hate Latin as much as later generations did? Did they take aqueducts for granted? What kind of really old stuff did they study for history? These are important questions.

What kind of songs did they sing when they were getting ready to return to school? In the classic movie “Billy Madison,” the great modern day philosopher/songwriter Adam Sandler gave us this anthem: “ Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad that I’m no fool. I’ve got my lunch box packed, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don’t get in a fight.”

Which brings us to September (the same in English or Latin) – the month that follows August and the time of our next Gathering. You will not have to pack a lunch to be there, but bring a little food if you can. And you will not have anything to prove to Dad or anyone else. Just come as you are. And hopefully there will be no fights. See you there.

June

June – yes it is June already. Well, it is not exactly June yet, but it is about to be June. It seems like only yesterday that we were in the throes of the colds of February.

So what does June have to say for itself. Summer begins in June. There is also one of those equinox days. It has to do with the tilt of various things or maybe one thing, the earth. Does the sun tilt? I am not sure which equinox it is, but I know that day and night are finally equal. And one of them will now get longer. I do not know which one. It does not seem to matter that much to me. No matter what, the daylight is too short for me.

My diary says that June 4 is a holiday in Ireland. I have no idea what the holiday is, but I am sure that the Irish will celebrate. June 14 is Flag Day. I am not sure that anything happens on Flag Day. I think that this year I will watch out for it. To our north, in Quebec June 24 is St. Jean Baptiste Day. I am sure that he must be someone important, but I champion my parochialism by refusing to find out who he is or was.

Bunker Hill Day is in June and is a holiday in Suffolk County only. It is just another reason for a day off for state government employees.

Let’s not forget Father’s Day on June 17. That is the day when all of the children who made a big deal about their mother on Mother’s Day in May guiltily plan something for their dad, even though the one shortcoming of each dad is that he is not a mom. Oh yes, children love their dads, but they looove their moms. I used to always give my father a hat for Father’s Day. My children have never given me a hat. Are they ungrateful? Of course, I have never told them that I would like a hat. No, if they really loved me they would figure it out.

June – a simple word given to us by the Romans. June bugs. June Jones (football coach.) And my favorite, June Cleaver. After all, I was the Beaver. He and I were the same age and looked alike. I would have traded for June Cleaver anytime.

Turkey in a Pear Tree

My wife called me out of the shower to see the sight. “Jim, there are wild turkeys outside!” I wrapped myself in a towel and ran to the front window. Six wild turkeys were making their way across the street into our front yard. They pecked their way up around the driveway and discovered the bird seed dropped by our piggy birds from their perches in the trees. Our birds are so well fed that they do not have to be careful about dropping food, much to the delight of the squirrels and now the turkeys.

I dripped my way from room to room in my house as the turkeys moved through the yard to the woods out back - six turkeys, each in its own right a spectacle. But six together, well that is an even bigger spectacle – maybe qualifying as a superspectacle, if there is such a word. If superstar football players can make superspectacular plays, then my turkeys can be a superspectacle.

Later in the day my wife called out, “Jim, the turkeys are back. And there are more of them.” I hurried to count them and this time there were seven. I was not too excited. I had already seen six that day and so one more was not a big deal. If there had been ten, then there would have been something to crow, or gobble, about.

An hour later I spotted three swans swimming down in the creek at the end of the street. I had not seen any swans since the summer, and the group of these snow white long necked beauties against the ice floes on the banks of the creek was quite a sight. And then they were joined by two more swans from across the creek and the five glided together. This called for an even closer look.

But there were only five. I had just seen seven turkeys. The turkeys had raised the bar for my sense of appreciation of nature. Even eight swans would not have been enough. If it took me ten turkeys to get excited, then it would take at least eleven swans to reach that level of euphoria.

As you can tell, my sense of appreciation is warped. I require volume. A few summers ago my daughter’s friend Danny exclaimed, “There’s a deer in your yard!” “How many deer?” I asked. “One.” One is not enough. We have deer all the time. It takes a least four deer to get me out of my chair. I demand volume.

I am not the only one who likes volume. Mariah Carey’s boyfriend recently tried to send her ten dozen roses, but there were not enough in the whole city to make up the order. I am sure that the several dozen that were delivered greatly disappointed her. It all depends on what you are used to. My wife is always thrilled on the rare occasion that I spring for a dozen roses. I have set the bar pretty low on the category of roses.

But back to the turkeys. You thought I never left them? I think I know where this volume problem started. It began way back in the middle ages with the publication of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” You know, that is the one that begins, “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree.” You will recall that the lover raised the bar day by day, “five gold rings,” “sev’n swans a swimming”… “ten lords a leaping,” up to “twelve drummers drumming.”

Enough already! When is enough enough? Why do I always want more? Is our culture a culture of more? Am I programmed to be dissatisfied with anything less than more? Have you ever seen a partridge in a pear tree? Wouldn’t that be wonderful thing all on its own?

Those questions are too weighty for me. I plan to spend my winter nights deciding just where to plant the pear tree. Or maybe I could plant a whole row. Or even several rows!

Flicker of Hope

My friend, Pat, is civic minded. Her town had a great idea during its tercentennial celebration several years ago. Every house in town would burn a lighted candle in a front window all day and night during the celebration. Pat liked the idea and she plugged in one of her Christmas candles in the picture window of her living room. She felt part of the celebration.

Time passed, the hoopla of a small town’s celebration died down, and the town moved on to other community issues. Lights were packed away to await the next Christmas season. But the light in Pat’s window remained on.

The light remained in the window for no particular reason other than it seemed like the right thing to do. It was a handy landmark for giving directions to her house. Pat is always giving out directions to strangers. She is known in the area as the woman who rehabilitates injured birds and people call frequently with injured owls, hawks and other birds of prey. She tells them to look for the light in the window.

One day, while dropping off an injured bird, a woman asked, “What is the light in the window for?” Pat had no ready explanation, but being quick on her feet, replied, “Oh, that’s a flicker of hope for the birds.”

The light, with its small incandescent bulb, shines brightly in Pat’s neighborhood. Across the street is an older couple who have had more than their share of illnesses and surgeries over the last few years. Pat and her husband have helped out in small ways when needed. The woman told Pat, “When my husband and I are in pain and just cannot sleep, we look out across the street and see your light. We know that you are always there if we need you. That means so much to us.”

Light bulbs do wear out. Sometimes in the middle of the night Pat awakes with the sense that the light has gone out. And perhaps this is the night that her neighbors need to see the light the most. Invariably her sense is right when she checks the light. A quick replacement is substituted from the important reserve supply.

Recently Pat has had her own medical problems. And she noticed that her neighbor across the street had left one candle burning in the window after the Christmas holidays had passed. She called her neighbor and said, “I see that you have a light burning in the front window.” “Keep smiling, Pat,” the woman said. Their roles had reversed. The light gone out from one house had reflected back. The flicker of hope had returned.

Hope keeps us going. The Czech leader Vaclav Havel said, “Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit … it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.” We could argue forever about the ultimate source, the anchor, but it is clear that we each can be an anchor by orienting our spirit. And the orientation may be not toward anyone or anything but merely out. The recipients, those we somehow touch, will show up. One small flicker of hope will reach another and another and another. My light goes on today.