A Winter's day of our discontent

Today begins the last week of the year and also the decade. Tomorrow we'll focus on closing out the year past and organizing for the new decade's first year. We'll start organizing for tax time. It's the equivalent of Spring cleaning so, as a reward for our anticipated diligence, we'll also start to get organized for next year's fly fishing. We didn't get out as much this year as we had hoped to. High waters and high winds oft hindered our best laid plans and they "gang agley."

Winter visitors: purple finches?

Photo by J. Harrington

Once we've turned the page on the calendar come Wednesday, we hope the mail and email entreaties to help meet nonprofit year end financial goals will diminish radically. We currently are feeling as though we're being punished for any earlier donations we made. Of course, all of that is compounded by the upcoming elections and those requests for financial aid to flip the governments one way or another. At the moment, I'd be willing to trade an increase in income taxes or a single checkoff on our returns for the hundreds of emails in my inbox asking for nondeductible or deductible political contributions. Getting rid of Citizens United by making elections publicly funded seems reasonable right now, even if it means some poor corporation's "speech" is foregone. Maybe allowing corporations to have a "personal" checkoff if they're a net contributor to the treasury would be fair. Yes, the weather's unending dreariness and the season's ceaseless dunning have increased our grumpiness.

stunning Winter sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

The last weather forecast we saw mentioned 3" to 5" of snow is expected tomorrow in our neighborhood. The fresh coating, once we've blown most of it off the driveway's currently ice-covered surface, should provide safer footing than we have today. On the other hand, come January we can look forward to the possibility of some stunning sunrises and/or sunsets; maybe visits from purple finches, return visits from a pileated woodpecker and other promises that Spring may arrive some day in a far-distant future.

Winter Branches

Margaret Widdemer

When winter-time grows weary, I lift my eyes on high
And see the black trees standing, stripped clear against the sky;

They stand there very silent, with the cold flushed sky behind,
The little twigs flare beautiful and restful and kind;

Clear-cut and certain they rise, with summer past,
For all that trees can ever learn they know now, at last;

Slim and black and wonderful, with all unrest gone by,
The stripped tree-boughs comfort me, drawn clear against the sky.

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