Bare morning table, the sweetness of the spring outside. For me, Lent is the early springtime, sometimes mild, sometimes bitter, filled with birdsong and things growing. I could do Christmas in the Antipodes, I think, without much problem, but the idea of an autumnal Lent and Easter . . . that's hard for me even to imagine. I've noticed a couple of blooms on my strawberries already, for example, and have been thinking, oh, yes, strawberries at Easter. As much as I love Advent and Christmas, this is the time of year for me. Fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and the utter beauty of the world coming to life before my eyes.
I don't intend to talk much about my personal disciplines for Lent --- partly because they're pretty puny and specific to me, partly because as the Lord says, "Do not disfigure your face like the hypocrites . . ." If He should choose to send me some actual suffering, then yes, I will talk about it, but my own chosen twinges: eh, that's boring, and talking about them would probably dissipate whatever efficaciousness they have to offer.
So I'll keep on getting dressed. Not . . . uh . . . giving that one up, in any event. Can you imagine? "Do not walk around naked in the streets like the hypocrites . . ."
I have to keep reminding myself that it is in fact still winter. So today's high is 74F, and tomorrow's is 84F, my goodness me. Saturday will be chillier, though not positively cold. All next week looks pretty warm . . . but just wait. We can have a hard frost anytime, up to the middle of April. It could snow, though it probably won't. Still, you never know. It's an exciting season that way.
Much work to do today, a phrase I'm beginning to tire of, already. I'll be glad to clear a big chunk of it away soon, but in the meantime, my days are full. Spent two hours in a Zoom meeting yesterday --- well, it was partly a meeting, and partly just a visit, because I think the other person was bored ---and that was great, but I sort of need to make up the time today. Mass at 4:45, and I need to put some soup makings in the crockpot for dinner when we come home.
And walk the dog, of course, because every day, there's the dog, needing a walk. That's really why I got a dog, in fact, and it's a good thing, because left to myself I would largely just sit here. It took a while for her to get to a place of being actually a decent walking companion, so that walking with her was a pleasure, not a trial, but these days she mostly is pleasant company, on the greenway trail or around the neighborhood.
Of course, there are still moments when she isn't. Yesterday afternoon, for example, we came around a corner in the neighborhood and alongside a yard we mostly don't pass on our walks, unless it's really late at night. This yard . . . I'd never known they had dogs. But I've also never seen dogs just appear out of the grass the way these dogs did. I thought there was one of them, maybe two. Now I'm not sure how many there were. I know there were a couple of golden retrievers, and I spotted a cocker spaniel in the mix as well, but that might not have been all of them. Anyway, as we passed, they all exploded out of the lawn itself, where they had been lying in wait, and filled the fence with their barking.
Dora . . . well. At the best of times Dora is a dog fight looking for a place to happen. When I say I had to drag her away, reader, let me tell you, there were claw marks in the asphalt of that street. She would have been over that fence, mixing it up with those dogs . . . sheesh. This is not at all what I was looking for in a dog, but it is what I have, and it's best that I know what I have. Most of the time we avoid these situations, but this one I had not anticipated. Now we know. That block: forever to be shunned by us.
But yeah, most of the time that kind of thing doesn't happen. The worst, normally, is that there's a cat on the greenway. If there's one thing Dora hates more than other dogs, it's cats. At either end of the greenway trail, there's a particular stretch dominated by a particular cat, who likes to sun him- or herself right in the middle of the trail. At the Motz Street end, it's a big tabby. At the Aspen Street end, a ginger. They like to lie there, fix Dora with their gaze, and say, "Bring it." We practice not reacting to this challenge. I scatter kibble and let her sniff it out of the grass. We rehearse calm. But eventually I have to decide: do we turn around and go the other way? More often than not, yes, that's exactly what we do, because Dora in Die, Cat mode is just tiresome. Sometimes I do drag her past, because we want to get to the dog park, or because I'm a glutton for punishment, I don't know. I'm not sure why I ever think it's worth it to pass a cat in Dora's company.
Now, too, the mourning doves are back for the spring, so she has a new enemy, right in the backyard. She can't chase anything far or for long, because she's either leashed or tethered, but she can flush them over the fence into Jane and Steve's yard, and stand at the gate daring them to try it with her. The doves are like, whatever, just let us have our little breakdown in peace.
In other news, here's a poem apposite for the day. If you can't read it through the Sun's paywall, here it is in a more accessible place.
AND wearing today:
I have neither disfigured my face nor rent my garment on this day of fast and abstinence, but dressed myself relatively cheefully in my wisteria Wool& Willow dress, navy cotton-blend leggings of several years' vintage, and my thrifted, new-to-me Birkenstock Rosemead clogs. I actually took them off right after this little series of photos and re-waterproofed them, because it's cloudy, and I do want to wear them, not hoard them against a day of perfect weather. When they dry I'll put them back on.
It is nice to have a purple dress again. I got through this last Advent just fine without one, relying on what accessories I had to add purple to each day's outfit, but I am glad to have one dress with sleeves to wear when the weather is changeable and tending toward warm. I might want a cardigan in church, or not, as the case may be. In either event, I have purple and a dress with coverage appropriate for the season.
And so to meet the day. Welcome, dear feast of Lent.