Gray Days
The wise men have come and gone. The Feast of the Epiphany is over. I can start taking down my Christmas decorations. All the colored lights will soon be boxed. The angels stored for another year. The Nativity Set wrapped and bundled. The winter season will officially be upon me. The gray days begin, January and February. Luckily, we have passed the winter solstice, and the days are imperceptibly lengthening and spring is imperceptibly coming. The gray days, which once gave me such anguish are now just days on a calendar and harbinger’s of spring.
Plus, I am into my Guadalupian Period and it feels as though something new is on the horizon. And empty days may only be empty because I’ve not looked close enough or empty because the thing waiting to fill them has yet to arrive. And it feels a little weird to be anticipating nothing but isn’t that why we watch the horizon, look over the hill, walk around the corner? Something might be there, and that something might be good, or not. I know. There’s always that possibility, but who wants to sit around in dread? Not me. I’ve done it in the past, and it’s really no fun.
I know how the world works. You get told no. You lose a job. You lose a wife. You get sick. But you also get to sit on a couch with your oldest son at your side while he plays some hot licks to a song you wrote and people applaud and you bump fists when it’s over and then do it again to another song. And someone who has never heard you sing says how much she enjoyed it and likes your songs, and before you know it you’ve spent a great evening with some of your closest friends, and when you walk out into the night for the long drive home, everything seems right with the world. Everything. And you can hardly wait to see what tomorrow might bring. And then you’re standing on your porch in the cold morning air, looking at the frost on the ground, and the thin crescent moon, thinking how good it feels, ready for one more day.