The View From the Loft

Ok … the Holidays are OVER!. .. time for Summer.

In October that first little briskness in the air is so exciting. The stores start to put out Christmas decorations, the LL.Bean catalog arrives full of beautiful plaid and flannel clothes that you would burn up in if you wore them in Newnan and everyone is comparing notes, sharing recipes and planning for the best holiday season ever.

Then, just like a wedding, it’s over and in this part of the world we plan for our usual 21 days of cold weather … Then, ta da, SPRING! So, I ask rhetorically, “What in the world is going on around here?”

We began December with snow! SNOW!! Think about it. Seventy degrees, then a week later, SNOW. Don’t get me wrong, I love snow. I think it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful for exactly 48 hours.

Just enough time to get a day or two off and to get a couple of pictures of the kids and the dog with a winter wonderland background. And don’t forget the house. Everybody needs a picture of their house from the end of the driveway to post on Facebook to convince friends from all over the world that the suburbs of Atlanta are … a virtual winter paradise, just like Vermont.

Now wind chills are in the single digits, the fun of winter is pretty much gone and the next 65 days loom in front of us and make us wish we had actually ordered something from L. L. Bean.

The unseasonably cold weather has given me time to ponder. Pondering is like ciphering but there is no math involved. Since I don’t have a yard at the Loft, I have a bunch of potted plants out front appropriately planted with pansies.

As I was tending them one day and admiring their colorful blooms in the midst of all this winter bleakness, I thought about the disrespect we have cast upon the pansy. In everyday language, “pansy” has become synonymous with weak, scared, tentative, chicken and even sissy. Yet here, two days after being covered in snow, these little unassuming flowers pop back up, drink up the melting snow and continue to contribute their bright colors as a contrast to the bleakness of winter.

They are the epitome of strength, endurance, purpose and confidence. Shame on the person who ever misused the word, pansy. I’m sure there is a lesson here for all of us if we just take a moment.

Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year. I was told to always have a resolution that was attainable, so in 2018 I have resolved to give up dieting. No telling what this winter has in store for us. I don’t know how you feel but if we get snowed in again in the next few weeks I don’t intend to rush to the store for bread and milk.

If I have to sit in the Loft for three or four days I do NOT want a sandwich and a bowl of cereal. I’m headed for the seafood department and the county line. Use your imagination. And don’t forget to ponder the pansies.