The Winter that Won't Let Go

Like the houses that wont sell and the economy that wont take off and the politics that wont get out of Park we now have the winter that wont let go. At least in Chicago. We have gone through hell. Thirty below. Forty below. Days on end of snow. Frozen wasteland. And by now we usually get some relief. It is almost April. But not to be. We woke up this morning to eighteen degrees. Frost on the windows with no end in sight.

And you really cant help but connect the dots. Our age is one of stagnation. People frozen in their homes in their jobs in their marriages.It is almost like America as a whole has hit middle age. A strange thought for a country that prides itself on being young. America now is one big waiting game it would seem. Waiting for retirement. Waiting for a job. Waiting to sell. And then there is the weather.

The slogging through it psychology of winter is a perfect metaphor for our time. We slog through to better times. Like the spring it must be there after this long dark winter. We can feel it in the sun now. We can feel it in the light that is now Daylight Savings Time. Funny how that extra hour means nothing when you cant go outside.

So we wait for winter to lose her grip. She is a real bitch this time. They are calling for snow tomorrow.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Winter Blues

You never really wake up. You haven't seen the sun for weeks. Everything aches. Your car is frozen. Your driveway is an ice skating rink. No matter how much you turn the heat up it seems cold. And it is always dark.  It is dark when you get up and dark when you come home. Between you run from building to building hunched over like a Russian. You look like a coal miner with a death pallor that is so pasty white you see every blemish that there ever was. And it is only January.

You are strangely depressed. Errant thoughts of death flit through your brain. And you don't feel like doing a thing. You consider going to bed and not getting up until spring. You could sleep that long. You eat everything and then some more. You set new records for crappy television because you have been inside so long there is nothing else to do. And you have come to hate the four walls.

And you think of moving. Florida. Brazil. Does it matter? Just where it is sunny and warm. You ask yourself every day how stupid am I to live here? Really stupid you say as you watch the snow fall and fall and then you go out and pull your back shoveling. And you go into a deep deep depression that doesn't thaw until April.

And then finally the sun comes back and you emerge one day like a mountain man blinking at the new world. You made it through another Chicago winter.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

The Long Slog Toward Spring and hopefully a Book

The holidays are over. On this we can agree. We have gained weight and added to our treasures and depleted our bank accounts. We have eaten everything under the sun and drank quite a bit too. We have made merry and now we are snowed in until the first peek of spring sometime in April or May or even June if you live in Chicago. And so we begin the long slog toward something brighter. Maybe summer.

As a writer you hope to have something for the spring. Maybe it is the change of seasons letting you know that time is slipping away. Add a birthday or a death in the family and you really feel times acceleration. The seasonal shift is always a shock. Like winter we think we can just outlast it all and that is a victory too.

But you want to have something to show for all this hibernatory living. Lets face it there is not much to do between now and the first warm days of spring except to work. Maybe that is why the work ethic in the Midwest is so fierce. The cold makes you just hunker down and grind through it. Hard to do that if it is seventy five and sunny outside your window. So time to grow your hair long and finish off that first draft or that final rewrite so you will have something to emerge from your cave with and say look; these brutally cold months were not in vain...

I wrote a book!
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Dr. Zhivago

Twenty four below and Dr. Zhivago abandons the city for the ice palace in the country. He and Lara know their time time is limited before the Bolsheviks come for them. I throw another log on the fire and stare out into the moonlit snow. Twenty four below and another million people will lose their homes this month. Zhivago and Lara enter Varekeno and find part of the old summer home where they can stay. Zhivago sees a table where he can write his poetry. He runs his finger through the dust and nods. "Yes this will do." The moon pearls the snow outside my window and the fire flickers as wars rage and banks fail. Lara and Zhivago sleep under animal skins and then he rises and lights his candle. Dr. Zhivago carefully takes out his pen and paper and slowly begins to write. He looks out the window across the Siberian landscape, seeing nothing but snow and ice under a blue moon. Wolves howl and he stares out into the darkness. We see the small candle from outside through the frosted window. The Russian Revolution has decimated the country and people live in fear for their lives. The houses around me are all dark. You don't' see people in this kind of cold, in these times, just homes belching steam. The middle class slumbers on under their increasing strain. Lara rises and touches Zhivago's shoulder as the wolves howl again. She cries out, "Oh...this is a terrible terrible time to be alive Uri..." Soon the Bolsheviks will come and they will be parted forever. Twenty four below and I slip down in front of the keyboard. The wind passes through the window as an icy hand. The wolves howl.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/