“Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red."
-  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Afternoon in February 

Like old times, I wake early, to my alarm set, to make sure the youngest, who has slept over, gets up in time for school–where she must be at her job and her phone alarm has died. And I wake but she has woken herself and outside, there i a glazed layer of white over the field and over the steps to all the doors and over the cars. I am the shoveler of the glaze and Charlie waits impatiently, getting wet in the ice rain and finally wants to give up and go in. But I’m done with the entrances, they are shoveled and ice melted and now we can go on our own morning way across the meadow, crunching, and meeting the river in its half-freeze of confusion and dull peaceful stillness. We stay out a long time because we want to wander and think and breathe through some questions. Well, I do. Charlie wants to smell what’s under the ice and drink cold water from the brook. Happily, I make a joyful connection: calling my dear aunt and uncle and hearing my aunt’s cheerful laughter and happiness and my uncle’s voice from afar, making the most of this new day. Now I am more cheerful, knowing they are happy and safe. It keeps raining and my felt hat is dripping cold water down my neck. The something that’s bothering me is still simmering, but what’s simmering up in me is clarity. Good, nourishing clarity. I know what I feel and why and I’m walking straighter and truer, passing the swamp, and finally turning. It’s time to take poor Charlie to sit by the fire to be warm and dry. Alas, that is not Charlie’s fate this morning. My middle one greets him and takes him upstairs for a scrub and a shower to get off the smell of coyote scat. Soon he is bounding down the stairs in a freakish dash of trying to rub himself earthy again, but there is only carpet and no scat. I have a lovely day with my daughter. This February seems to be full of surprise.