Most days I feel purple – it’s my signature color, after all. But today – today, I feel grey. It’s February. It has been raining for three days, I think, but my days are running together. I had norovirus over the weekend, and it has left me depleted on many levels. I, Chrissie Anderson Peters, didn’t even watch the Super Bowl on Sunday night. I didn’t even try. It was on Fox in the background, but, what with the vomiting and diarrhea, I gave up all hope of any entertainment or enjoyment and took promethazine to try to knock myself out. It mostly worked. Now Russ is getting over it. I feel like I haven’t seen him for days because we’ve been avoiding each other, trying not to pass the germs back and forth.
I decided to give myself a facial today and used a great moisturizer on my skin. Then I ended up crying most of it off. The longer I sat here in my office and tried to write, the more I watched it rain. The more I watched it rain, the more depressed I got. I started staring at the big maple tree that sits down the driveway outside my office window – I’m relatively certain it’s a maple tree, but today, I wouldn’t swear to it, for some reason – and I noticed the squirrels have started stripping the bark off the smaller limbs again this winter. They may have been doing it for weeks or months without me noticing it, but today, I saw it. I watched one busily going to work on it, unraveling lichen-covered bark to haul away somewhere, maybe for now, maybe for later, to line or strengthen its nest. That should have made me happy – watching something in nature thriving. Instead, it made me feel like time is dragging – like winter marches on. We’ve had more winter than we normally see in Bristol. It could have been worse, but I’m ready for it to be over.
This past weekend, I passed through Lenoir City. I was supposed to be at a poetry chapbook class there with a small group, but the person I was traveling with got sick the night before – thus, how I ended up with norovirus – and we had to miss the session. But as we were driving through to pick up our poetry packets to take home, I saw daffodils, standing straight and tall. I was amazed because it’s so early. My little plot of them here at the house – which consists of two plants now, I believe – hasn’t poked up above the dead leaves covering them yet. But those in Lenoir City were proudly telling the world, “Spring is on the way!” Then yesterday we had sleet here in Bristol. Just an hour north of us in Wytheville, VA, my friend Kandy has had two snow days now (although today it is raining and slushy, she says).
On the other hand, we leave for Miami in seventeen days. Seventeen days. I forgot for a moment that February has twenty-eight days, not thirty or thirty-one. Why does it always feel like the longest month instead of the shortest? But yes, it’s almost time for the 80s Cruise. No matter where it goes, it is my happy place. And this year, there will be an excursion in the Dominican Republic to a place called “Monkey Land.” For those of you who may recall my encounter with the Capuchin monkeys several years ago (where, I cannot remember), you will know that monkeys bring me joy. So, there are many reasons to look forward to this year’s trip. Time away with Russ, warmer weather, great artists, a new place we’ve never been, and spider monkeys. Seventeen days…
The 80s Cruise with Russ and spider monkeys made me feel less grey. I will survive the next seventeen days. I will meet all my deadlines. I’m reminded of a song, so I’ll leave you with some lyrics from The Grateful Dead…
“Oh, well, a touch of grey
Kind of suits you anyway
That was all I had to say, and
It’s alright
I will get by…
I will survive.”
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