It is gray outside; it is warm, very warm for February and I find myself off balance. Most years we have had enough cold weather that I think that perhaps, just perhaps, we will have a hint of warmer weather. This year, with the exception of the few days I typed how we were going TO FREEZE, it has been more than above freezing.

I am starting to believe that most of my life, I have been been toughened up by being slapped in the face by the biting cold of walks across a parking lot. This year, especially this month, I have experienced something like a tepid bath – not cold enough to invigorate you, nor warm enough to relax and soothe your muscles. Much to my surprise, I find myself missing that feeling of “Oh, Thank God,” when I scoot into the back of the house and lean on the door to make certain it is fully shut. “The warmth, the warmth,” my mind would silently exclaim with an atavistic surge of the genes that reach back to the Stone Age.

Now I am a blob, uninspired by the gloom and fog that float from one day to the next. The fault, of course, is not in the weather, just as it is not in my stars; it is with me. It has been said that February is the waiting room of the year (C.S. Lewis), but, if so, than I have been sitting here without an appointment.

That would seem to make no sense, and yet it poured right out of my fingers. I may mean that I have just existed during this time, sitting here not even glancing at the time, nor reading an out-of-date magazine, not anticipating what the appointment will bring.