{"id":63701,"date":"2018-02-12T02:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/improvisedlife.com\/?p=63701"},"modified":"2018-02-09T14:40:25","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T19:40:25","slug":"maintain-kind-summer-horribleness-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/improvisedlife.com\/2018\/02\/12\/maintain-kind-summer-horribleness-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Maintain a Kind of Summer in the Horribleness of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roz Chast’s January New Yorker cover<\/a>\u00a0“Cruellest Month” made us laugh out loud.\u00a0\u201cI wanted to show just the horribleness of January.\u201d Chast says. And she did, of February as well. We particularly relate to:<\/p>\n

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Bombogenesis?<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Sunset at 11 am.<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Heat Wave<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Arctic Blast <\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Flu <\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Cabin Fever<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Crosstown Bus Never Comes<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Weird Frozen Pellets<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then we remembered something:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Sally Schneider<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

…a kind of summer…<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

I went out of the schoolhouse fast<\/em>
\nand through the gardens and to the woods,<\/em>
\nand spent all summer forgetting what I\u2019d been taught \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,<\/em>
\nhow to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,<\/em>
\nmachines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.<\/em><\/p>\n

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back<\/em>
\nto the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember<\/em><\/p>\n

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,<\/strong><\/em>
\nthe way the wild wrens sang though they hadn\u2019t a penny in the bank,<\/strong><\/em>
\nthe way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer by Mary Oliver<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/span><\/h1>\n
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A post shared by Ellen (@ellensilverman)<\/a> on