Places and Times

I enjoyed reading the comments on my last post, and have continued my musings about the times and places of our lives and being shaped by them. I don't know if it really is just the January blahs and the tail end of sick, but I am feeling seriously less enchanted by life here than I have been at any point since my arrival. The darkness, the towering snowbanks, the routine of work, it all seems to be kind of grinding right now, and I find myself less patient and tolerant, more anxious and cranky. I had two dreams last night in succession in which things were closing around me to keep me in a place in which I did not want to be. Yeah, it does not take much to interpret that! In both dreams I had wandered innocently into something and gotten either lost or into trouble by doing something inadvertent to set off an alarm that started closing doors and gates.

I wonder sometimes if God goes to some warmer place in January. I always seem to have a harder time making contact this time of year. Seriously, I know it's me....not that I would blame God a bit. All those cruise adds are looking seriously tempting.

It will be Lent soon. Yep, it's one of those years. Ash Wednesday in the middle of February, a little over a month away. I think I'd better start thinking about it, Lent, that is. Or it too will slip away like Advent did. I'd like a Lent-y Lent this year I think. Need one to get my spiritual house in order. That place too impacts how we are, doesn't it?