A New Leaf

This morning, a couple days late, I ripped January 2006 off the calendar. Simple as that. It’s in the wastebasket. Where it belongs. For whatever reason, it was a rough month. I started out with a worse than usual case of the post holiday blues. Bouts of dire pain and hours spent staring at a bright light over the shoulder of a masked figure poking sharp objects into my face didn’t do a whole lot to chase away that malaise. What do you get when you add a heaping dose of "poor me" to a beaker already full to the brim with "life sucks?" Imagine a foaming, churning mess running down the front of a table in Frankenstein’s lab…

It’s a new month. Time to flip the page to February and get on with it. Isn’t that what the phrase "turning over a new leaf" refers to? A "leaf" as in, "page?" Of a notebook? Of a calendar? It’s funny…in my mind, when I hear that phrase, I picture a real leaf …a freshly unfurled, light-green one. Looking under it for something different. Something besides a toad…or dog poop. Which is what I feel like I’ve been wallowing in for the last forty days or so…

So, whether it’s a new "leaf" on the calendar, or the green leaves coming up in my garden, around the tiny winter flowers---the Japanese iris, the anemones, the crocus and grape hyacinths--it IS time.

And out with the blue...let's try green for awhile, shall we?