Essential days
Essence: The quality or qualities of a thing that give it its identity.
I have for many years amused myself by trying to identify a day each month that characterizes the essence of that month. I picked out a rare double for January, don't remember the dates.
First one was an ice storm day. Grey, cold, first rain, then freezing rain, then sleet and a bit of snow. That's January all the way. Next morning, there was about an inch of new snow, bright sunshine, bitterly cold, with all the snowflakes still fully crystalline. Each flake acted as a prism to produce a tiny point of light so that the entire surface of the ground was covered with a blanket of diamonds. Actually a lot better than diamonds, just points of pure light. Those are the two facets of the essence of January. Most months have only one in my mind.
It is not permissable to simply go out and look at an essential day, you've got to spend some time immersed in it. Thus I went out and cut brush off the township road right of way for about an hour the first day (which reminds me that I've got to write something about forest regeneration and Arbor Day foolishness sometime). Also managed to jog about 5 miles each day, nearly froze my butt, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not often that time permits such total immersion in an essential day.
I think the essence of February is a heavy snow. Might be with wind which makes it a blizzard, or without wind, which makes it a .... heavy snow, I suppose. got to be at least 6 inches, 8 or more is more valid.
I have for many years amused myself by trying to identify a day each month that characterizes the essence of that month. I picked out a rare double for January, don't remember the dates.
First one was an ice storm day. Grey, cold, first rain, then freezing rain, then sleet and a bit of snow. That's January all the way. Next morning, there was about an inch of new snow, bright sunshine, bitterly cold, with all the snowflakes still fully crystalline. Each flake acted as a prism to produce a tiny point of light so that the entire surface of the ground was covered with a blanket of diamonds. Actually a lot better than diamonds, just points of pure light. Those are the two facets of the essence of January. Most months have only one in my mind.
It is not permissable to simply go out and look at an essential day, you've got to spend some time immersed in it. Thus I went out and cut brush off the township road right of way for about an hour the first day (which reminds me that I've got to write something about forest regeneration and Arbor Day foolishness sometime). Also managed to jog about 5 miles each day, nearly froze my butt, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not often that time permits such total immersion in an essential day.
I think the essence of February is a heavy snow. Might be with wind which makes it a blizzard, or without wind, which makes it a .... heavy snow, I suppose. got to be at least 6 inches, 8 or more is more valid.
posted by tickmeister at 8:37 PM
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