ANNOYING DRIPS MORPH INTO SHINING STALACTITE PRISMS

The frozen landscape of winter, the near hibernation state required for survival during one frigid day after another, challenge the effort to put a positive spin on any of this season.  Yet, as the infrequent morning sun shines through my kitchen window, a row of ever-lengthening icicles have formed a frame around the winter scene I am growing so weary of.  As the sun's warmth briefly thaws the snowy roof and ice-filled gutters, the drips slide down the icicles that are sparkling with  dancing rainbow colors, glistening with the refractions of sunbeams.  When the brief time of warming is done, the sun slips to a different angle, and the drips slowly solidify into another inch or two of icicle that has turned white and opaque.

Winter is that way.  Whether it is the winter of the Mid-West, or the winter in the soul.  Waiting for the brief warmth of insight, seeing all the promising sparkles of the refracted light, only to return to the frozen whiteness of waiting.  Waiting for the blizzard of grief, negativity, and sorrow to subside.  Waiting for hope to begin to thaw.  Waiting for that first hint of green, that first bud of change, that growing sense of promises finally bloosoming................and so I indulge my desire to turn most things into metaphor that turns into an analogy which turns into..........paragraphs that cause other people to say such things, as, "You're making my head hurt!"

So, today it'warmed enough to rain, the freezing, black ice sort of rain, leading to the cancelation of everything I planned to do on this the last day before our long-awaited journey to warmer climes.  And, I feel.....hopeful.  That's as close as I will come to making anyone's head hurt, hopefully.

The next time you read this, I will hope to post metaphors eminating from eyes that are sunlit, lungs that are full the healing balm of fresh air breathed, and a mind and body engaged in activities that energize.