February - the beat goes on
My Year
It passes so quickly, and I don’t know why. Every year I have great plans for February that never come to pass. There are less days in the month. That’s a good excuse.
Valentine’s Day, so special to so many is just another day for me. I have had incredibly bad luck with Valentine’s Days. The year when I was 26 and went with my boyfriend to a dance at the local community center and ended up going home alone. Don’t ask.
President’s Day - we used to celebrate Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays separately by cutting out their quite distinctive silhouettes to paste in the school windows.
The year my lovely husband got lethally drunk, came home from the bar and started a big bashing fight and I ended up spending the night in the car.
The year I gave up smoking and spent the night looking for just a butt, or some loose tobacco, tearing out the drawers and dragging out all my coats and pants to hunt through the pockets. No luck. Next day I decided to do my spring cleaning!
Ahhhh! February. Here in Northern California everything is green as green can be. Like kids crayons green. Greener this year than last and the mustard is vibrant. Driving home yesterday as the sun was setting the mustard glowed against the green hills and flocks of pelicans flew over - I almost drove into a ditch! So I stopped to photograph the pelicans.
Some of the flowering trees, plums, acacia, tulip trees - are flooded with flowers and the extra pollen that comes with them makes my head ache and I keep trying to drink more coffee to make it go away. The headache will stay until some rain comes and washes off that pesky pollen.
The promise of spring in February is what keeps a lot of us alive, I am convinced. Seriously, when there are two or three day long breaks in between the rains, I think “Yes, I CAN MAKE IT!” The air is still chilly but young people are throwing off their coats and jackets and bicyclers are wearing shorts again.
If you polled people about their favorite month, I doubt that February would win, it might be the month everyone forgets. So I’ll make this hub short, like the month, and spare you anymore of my dark, winter memories of this most forgettable month. March, now March, can be quite dramatic!
