January Desperation

Do you remember how fast time was flying from December 1st to January 1st?

It was speedier than Hub’s most frenzied driving. The G-force drove my hair back and pressed my lips and nose into flat tight lines. And then, before I knew it, before I was even ready, New Year’s Day arrived and it was all over.

And then the world stopped spinning. Time stopped. Even the sun no longer rose and fell in the sky. It didn’t seem worthwhile for Old Sol to climb so high, so slowly, with no height of day to rest before a return to hiding on the western horizon. Days dragged in 2-second increments with the sun in hiding and the sentry of night and day nothing but a cloudy moon. A cloudy moon that permitted no differentiation of night from day.

And still January progresses at a pace too slow to know, see, or observe. It seems a drag of too many minutes and too many hours; too many monotonous days, and too many monotonous nights. Nights that are far too long for restful slumber.

In the space of the Christmas rush, this is what I longed for, but now it is far too extreme, in reverse, to be appreciated.

And so what must be resurrected is a sense of humor. Oh yes, easy said, but not so easy done. Hub and I have just gone through whirling days of phenomenal feasts, grandchildren chatter, arrivals and departures from the front door, and lovely surprise offerings under the tree.

We have gone from Christmas carol-bells-ringing, tinsel glowing, lights glittering, endless and very busy activity to this dull, slow-crawling, and meaningless creep of time.

And so there is a new kind of desperation for humor. I didn’t realize how desperate until the situation of Hub’s lined-jeans-exchange. Hub was so happy when he got a pair of lined jeans for Christmas. He loves lined jeans because they eliminate the need for donning underwear. But the new pair was snug so yesterday he went to town and exchanged them for a larger pair.

Now the wee bit of disappointment for him in that exchange was that the original jeans had blue flannel lining, and the larger pair he brought home yesterday have red flannel lining.

So this morning he puts on the larger pair and says to me, “I wonder why these jeans have red flannel lining instead of blue? I’m not sure I like that.”

Of course, my response, (while thinking to myself – ‘silly old fool’), is…

“Why…?”

“Because,” says Hub, “when I am out in the snow I might get them wet and they will turn my legs red. And then people will laugh and poke fun at me. They will taunt me. I can hear them already.”

‘There goes red legs. Ha-Ha! There’s that old boy with red legs again!’
_____

If you didn’t laugh, you better. You were supposed to.

This is Motif 1 in Hub’s desperation (and mine), to find the sense of humor we had before the laggard tempo of January 2010 virtually stopped the clocks.