January (The Prince that Lives Underground)

Many experts agree that January is a bitch of a month. It's cold and snowy (frigid), and there are all those resolutions that you still have the inclination to hold to (demanding), and there suddenly are barely any holidays* (doesn't put out). It's the kind of month that, were it a lady in actuality, you would warn your friends not to date. This reviewer, however, posits that January is a lovely bitch of a month, as in the kind of month your friend would go off and date anyway. And further, January isn't a jerk at heart or anything. Its behaviors, while bitchy at first glance, can be to the discerning eye, can be shall we say colorful. It's not so much that January has a softer side as it is that its unique position at the heart of winter affords it some luxury and delight.

Don't get me wrong. There are certain prerequisites to enjoying January. You really should have someone to curl up with, and you really have to enjoy curling up**. January, being, as mentioned earlier, frigid, will not bear the uninsulated heart with any particular grace. So yes, you have a certain amount of responsibility here, just as in any other month***. For instance, July requires summer dresses, swimming pools, and soular panels. April demands a certain amount of forbearance and firm control over one's seasonal vertigo. We'll not even start on what you need to survive November. But once you've attained the necessary safeguards, swaddled yourself in soft red blankets and warm wine and loving arms, you can safely look out on the sweetest month in winter. In fact, it might even be suggested (and in fact the suggestion is happening right this second) that January was created exclusively for bundling up in soft warm things, and for being snuggled, and for owning domestic lap-pets, and for having hot chocolate, and for starting fires in fireplaces, and for feeding soup to noisy kids. It was made for wandering outside for as long as it remains exhilirating and beautiful, then wandering back inside all red-cheeked and Hallmarky and not feeling goofy about it.

Because you still have your strength in January - not the bundle of energy that precedes the holidays, where you have to get out and do stuff before you do harm to yourself and others - but regular, lazy, well-fed strength. As in, it's not February yet and winter is still young enough that you don't feel like you might actually turn into a big miserable wet ice-rock if the cold goes on for one single more day. As in, you have some time to consider the quieter and more heart-shaped aspects of things. As in, if you've lived life right, you can spend a few minutes checking out your breath-clouds in the air or sucking on icicles or half-hoping, beyond the fear of the commute and even beyond love of the unscheduled day off, that it might snow enough for some serious snow-angels.

And there's the other half of having the time to really enjoy winter, which is that you don't have to think about all that other stuff, all that driving and eating and drinking and buying and giving and praising (denominationally or otherwise) and devouring your own tail etc., all on a tight schedule, with no wiggle (or angel) room. After the spin of December, we all frankly kind of need the holiday celibacy of January, before we burn out and miss everything in the blur all at once.

What it comes down to is that just looking at snow is one thing. You can do that any month of winter. But in January, it's new and fresh, and you aren't distracted by a bunch of crazy goings-on. You can love all that illogical stuff that you loved when you were a kid, if you feel like it, in the good bright quiet.

So maybe January isn't a bitch at all. Maybe it's more along the lines of the pretty and interesting librarian who looks great with her hair down.

To conclude, I present for your consideration the first section of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "For C.W.B."

Let us live in a lull of the long winter winds
Where the shy, silver-antlered reindeer go
On dainty hoofs with their white rabbit friends
Amidst the delicate flowering snow.

All of our thoughts will be fairer than doves.
We will live upon wedding cake frosted with sleet.
We will build us a house from two red tablecloths,
And wear scarlet mittens on both hands and feet.


*The reviewer is aware of New Year's Day, MLK Jr. Day, and the Chinese New Year. However, New Year's Day is more a minor circumstantial part of December's super-exciting New Year's Eve - it's an afterthought. As for MLK Jr. Day, while it is indeed a totally honorable holiday, it's not a very party-ful one and a lot of people don't even get off work for whatever the January equivalent of a barbeque is, so it's kind of chilly after the giant month and a half of feasting we've all just done. Finally, the Chinese New Year doesn't always fall in January because it doesn't belong to January. There is also of course the reviewer's birthday, but that's a subject for later wide regard.

**If you do not enjoy curling up, you're probably a bot and won't understand the rest of this entry, or even the point of this blog at all. We recommend you shift your shiny ass over to http://www.wehearttoasters.com/ or whatever.

***The only exception to this rule of monthly girding of the loins is May, which has never asked for anything from anybody and whose only drawback is that by the end of it you've forgotten that other months exist.