January in Cleveland

There is, or there was, or there will be a full moon, I can't keep track, but the moon has been huge and sitting heavy on the clouds. The lake tides have been unnaturally high all week. That's not actual, that's a metaphor. People have been tapping on the glass. Also a metaphor.

So of course we tapped back, and they tapped back, and it became a game, and then a code, and then we all went outside. I'm not good with codes. I need things spelled out, in black and white large clear font, with footnotes. I have just started wandering around blissfully self involved, ignoring the tapping, letting others figure it all out. There are all sorts of emotions swimming behind my eyes, and I don't give a crap. I spend my mornings wishing for bread to dip into tea, that's how weird things have been lately. It's probably because I've started reading again, it makes me a weirdo.

In celebration, January became a month of sobriety and sunshine. It's not January I'm worried about, it's all those other months waiting in the wings. February. March. They are using January to soften us up. We melted like margarine at first but I want to be wrapped up and protected now, I want to sleep in warm places, with warm things. This weather sets off sprinkled pricklings in my spine of storms to come. It is beautiful and calm and threatening. How unprepared I am, to be put away for winter.

Between the sunshine and the deadlines and the full moon, I feel like this year is going to take forever and a week. We were all quiet that day, and I think we were all tired.