The Thursday! Newsletter 1-15: Your February Light
Volume 1, Issue 16
February is a whole month full of Norman-like uggggggghs.
If I had to rate the months from my favorite to my least favorite, February would rank 185th, after the 11 other months and a whole lot of months I made up along with a few dozen blank spaces I put in there just to separate February's Frigid Foulness from all that is decent and good in the world.
Or, as I wrote a few days ago on my Facebook feed, "April may be the cruelest month for those who inhabit The Waste Land, but for those of us here, February is the month that leans most heavily on the soul." And it does. February is cold and grey, wet and dreary. It demands that you stay indoors and punishes you for trying to look at more than the four walls of your own abode. This particular February is worse because even if you do venture out and withstand February's petulance for doing so, where in the world can you go? As I've mentioned before, the places where I'd normally find refuges simply aren't there anymore. Maybe they'll come back but maybe they won't. That particular thought doesn't exactly bring cheer.
There's a thing to remember, though and it's a thought I've tried very hard to keep handy, especially for times when the dark moods move in and try to smother me. I want to share it with you. Maybe it'll help. Ready? Here it is.
Every year has a February.
Can you feel the power in that little sentence? I didn't at first, but eventually it sunk in. We go through a February every year. Oh, this February might be a bit tougher because of certain roving clouds of a certain virus that we shall not name clearly, but it's still just February. We can't stop it from happening. February is inevitable and consistent, which seems dreadful, is actually powerful. We know its game. We know how it works. We know all its tricks. That means we can plan and planning is cool.
Because I know how February usually feels for me, I can expect this month to feel the same way. I know how the days are likely to proceed. I know the snow or ice or freezing wintry mix is coming. The sun is going to die behind thick clouds for a while. The days will feel shorter, even though I know they are getting gradually longer. I have reasonable expectations for darkness and depressed moods, the longing for green leaves and open windows, and (in the Before Years) baseball.
In the past, I had not planned very well for February. I'd sit there like the dumbest duck on the pond while February drew a bead on me and BOOM. Toast. This year, though, I figured I might try something new and get ahead of February a little bit. I bought one of those bright and shiny lamps that's supposed to fool your body into thinking it's getting sunlight. I'm taking Vitamin D. I'm checking on my mental outlook regularly on purpose. I'm making sure I stay in touch with friends. I read up on how folks who live in hard and miserable winters make it through without becoming horrible grouches. I'm spending more time on my heart and soul and, right now, it seems to be working. Oh, don't get me wrong. My plans haven't all worked the way I expected. The light isn't exactly a miracle cure and the Vitamin D doesn't necessarily work quickly. I sometimes forget to check on myself and I go a day or so without checking on my friends, but mostly I'm doing okay. I am far from becoming a master of hyggeligt or a Christian giant. But the more I live in the life I have right now, the more I remember that God gave me the day I have and I simply should not treat it shabbily, the better I feel.
I've noticed something else, too. I'm writing more. I've put three stories up at my site (links below, if you're curious) and I've notes for a couple more in my writing notebook. I figure I'll have two more written by the end of the week. None of the stories are very long, but would you rather have a long story in my notebook that you can't read or five shorter stories that you can read anytime you want and share with your friends?
What I'd really like you to take from all this is you have far more control over your day than you imagine. We may all be very small beings in a very large universe, but you really do control the most important parts of how you live. You control your reactions to a day or a whole horrible month. You decide whether you want to live the day you're in right now to the fullest or whether you want to lay up and wait until tomorrow. I'd much rather you chose the former rather than the latter. Trust me when I tell you that waiting until tomorrow becomes a very difficult habit to break. You get dug into a rut of inaction and despair because the day you're in now doesn't just carry its own weight but the weight of all the other failed days before it, those days you decided to hide from your own bright future. Please don't get into that rut, even a little bit. It's not a great place.
And, before you ask me how I know you have a bright future, let me tell you. When you start living today the best way you can, you find yourself looking forward to doing the same thing to the next day you get. You find yourself wiggling a little bit, right before you go to sleep, excited for what tomfoolery and shenanigans you can get into when you wake up. You ask God in your nightly prayer for another day, if He doesn't mind so much, to do something cool. Maybe you're not saving the world, but you're living your life, and that's where you get all the brightness. Folks are going to notice. You're going to shine, in your own way.
What better way to push back against a dark and bleak month than with the light of your own wonderful life?
New Story Alert! Remember the three stories I mentioned earlier? Here they are: "The Morning Hunt", "Hall to the Chief", and "The Boundary".
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Here Are the Arts and/or Letters I Promised...
Can you truly say you've had dinner if your napkin wasn't folded into a proper representation of a mer-dog? I do not think any of us can. These are really things, from a real book, that real people did. For real.
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Here Are Links, either Useful or Fun!
If you are stuck, you can get unstuck.
What, exactly, is orbiting around Alpha Centauri? I love not only that we are stretching our senses to find out but also that enough of us are curious enough to look. I think that curiosity is dying out, slowly and sadly.
In a Russian swamp is a facility that is broadcasting a mysterious signal. No one will fess up to what is going on (no big shock) and it's quite possible that no one knows for sure why it's still happening (also no big shock). Still, an interesting mystery!
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One Last Thing.
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