Go back to the North Pole, Brother Wind

I had never heard the term Polar Vortex until right after the new year this year. It's an old term, new in popular usage, though. Arctic Blast is what they used to call a deep cold snap, right? Both terms are scary, if you ask me.

Because the weather and I are like this (fingers pressed together), it's poetic that I came down with the heinous, hideous, horrible Swine Flu in exact alignment with the blast of polar air. My main symptoms were exactly like the weather: I had the chills and a cough. (One feature of the vortex was an evil wind, like a cough, gusting as it did.) Though I had a very high fever, I could not get warm. I was like Heidi, dressed in layer after layer, hiding under two comforters, sleeping in a hat. I had the heat turned up to eleven (my Pepco bill this month is going to be scary). And still I was so cold.

My main wish for 2014 is for a gentle year. Not included in my ideas of "gentle" are polar vortexes or H1N1. Is my wish for the year nothing more than that - wishful thinking? I hope not! But it might be.

Now they're saying we're going to have yet another one of these frigid cold spells, mid-week. And I, a great lover of winter (or so I say), do not look forward to it. Maybe it would be more fun if we got snow here in DC, I'm not sure. One thing I know is that I will welcome this spring with open arms, I seriously will.

In the meantime we have February to contend with. I'm thinking it's going to take a hell of a lot of poetry at Candlemas to break the ice around the heart of the earth, to remind her of spring.

It's a winter of hibernation behaviors. I'm spending a lot of the time on the couch. To keep myself amused, I watched a bunch of movies from the 1930s which are really bizarre and usually either confusing or deeply depressing. I switched the other day from the 30s to the 40s and 50s. I'm deep into a Cary Grant movie marathon (which is much more cheerful) as I wait for warmer days.

Oh 2014, please be gentle - please? I'm begging you.

Shalom.