All too briefly and temporarily we have entered above 0℉ territory today. This being Minnesota, that breakthrough will promptly be followed by (light?) snow tomorrow, we're told. That prompts thrashing between "Beggars can't be choosers" and "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" to reflect reactions to the "improvement" in our local weather.
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| will Ash Wednesday bring us more snow?
Photo by J. Harrington
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On this Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, if times were more normal, lots of folks would be anticipating tomorrow's ceremonies to observe Ash Wednesday. We noted with some surprise that today's Star Tribune has an article referring to "Lent kits," a reflection on our unsettled times. On the other hand, we suspect all of us could really do with "a six-week period of reflection and repentance," at least we know we could. The past four or five years, compounded and complicated by a year's worth of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the past few weeks of a polar vortex, have severely dampened our once sunnier disposition. Spring thaw should help a lot when it finally arrives sometime near the end of Lent.
We don't recall suspecting our Better Half [BH]of being a student of Machiavelli, but a present she gave us this Christmas past has us wondering if we've misjudged her. The present was a book entitled The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. We've now read it twice. That's not something that happens very often. We wouldn't be surprised if, during a six week period of reflection and repentance, we managed to read it again. If we've peaked your curiosity, you can view a sample of the book at Mr. Mackesy's web site. In any case, the BH has now enticed us into believing there are other ways to go through life, or at least through Lent, than as a grumpy, cynical, old man suffering an overdose of self-pity. We fear that a failure to heed the message(s) in Mackesy's masterpiece may well leave us to spend the rest of our life haunted by our mother's voice reminding us that "You haven't got the brains god gave little apples." If that's not food for reflection and repentance, we don't know what is. Enjoy what you can of what's left of Mardi Gras.
I cast a backward look—how changed
The scenes of other days!
I walk, a wearied man, estranged
From youth’s delightful ways.
There in the distance rolleth yet
That stream whose waves my
Boyish bosom oft has met,
When pleasure lit mine eye.
It rolleth yet, as clear, as bold,
As pure as it did then;
But I have grown in youth-time old,
And, mixing now with men,
My sobered eye must not attend
To that sweet stream, my early friend!
The music of its waters clear
Must now but seldom reach my ear,
But murmur still now carelessly
To every heedless passer-by.
How often o’er its rugged cliffs I’ve strayed,
And gaily listened, as its billows played
Such deep, low music at their base—
And then such brightening thoughts would trace
Upon the tablet of my mind!
Alas, those days have run their race,
Their joys I nowhere now can find.
I have no time to think
Of climbing Glory’s sunny mount
I have no time to drink
At Learning’s bubbling fount!
Now corn and potatoes call me
From scenes were wont to enthrall me—
A weary wight,
Both day and night
My brain is full of business matters,
Reality has snatched the light,
From fancy’s head, that shone so bright,
And tore the dreams she wove, to tatters!
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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