February
We’re having an unusually verdant February here in mid-Michigan, much to my snow-loving roommates’ chagrin. I for one couldn’t be happier about it. February is a dreary month, a gray and tepid reminder that Old Man Winter is still holding onto his last spiteful breath for at least another month (though in Michigan, another two is more likely).
Whenever February rolls around, I’m reminded of a Boris Pasternak poem that Regina Spektor sings in her song Après Moi:
February. Get ink. Weep.
Write the heart out about it, sing
Another song of February
While raucous slush burns black with spring.
The original Russian inspired me to take an abortive semester in Russian when I first started college. All that’s left from that class is a laborious ability to read Cyrillic like someone recovering from a stroke.
And that summarizes my relationship with February pretty well. February is when most of my family members saw fit to die (including, most recently, my grandfather in between last Thursday and Friday), February is when I got drunk for the first time, and February is usually when I’m at the height of my winter depression that leaves me surly and unapproachable for four months of the year.
But this year it’s been different. This year it’s been green, it’s been alive, it’s been blooming. Well, not quite blooming, but the effort is there, and I appreciate it. This year I can wear a light jacket when I go to class, and I can wistfully remember the lingering feeling of a certain girl with red curls on my skin while the sun shines and the sky is blue.
What the hell. I’ll take it. For February, at least.
