Betwixt and between

Rush rush rush... woosh! It's over. I always so look forward to the holidays and then when they are finally here, everything is so busy and rushed that it feels like they are over before they really begin! Of course half of my plans don't happen either... my Christmas cards are still sitting in my living room un-sent. (I think I will still write them up and send them as a New Year's greeting. What the heck!) I have a ball of gingerbread dough in the fridge that has yet to be baked. That homework I was going to get a head start on for next term... um ya. Not so much. My stack of library books... I've read about five pages. The house is messy and chaotic.

Soon I will have to launch myself back into the rushing and the doing - buying text books for the new semester, returning/exchanging certain gifts, trying to pick up a few necessities while they are on sale... But for the moment I want to take a breath and just enjoy the betwixt and between. That space of time between Christmas day and New Year's day. The tree is still up, the gifts are open and can be enjoyed, the fridge is plump with left-overs (we have an odd (but delicious) assortment of herbed potatoes, cake, mincemeat tarts, home-made pizza, fruit and lumpia in ours), most of the obligations have been met so you can laze about on the couch or visit unhurriedly with friends... the Big Day is over, but there is still the changing of hands from one year to the next to look forward to. If you have to work (which I do) it is usually less busy and the hours are reduced (unless you work in customer service of course, in which case, my condolences). It is a nice in between feeling, a time outside of regular time, a little yearly nook where you can cocoon yourself away before starting anew.

We are having a momentary lull in the cold weather, so all those giant heaps of snow are melting and it looks almost like spring (all the grey muddyness, none of the green shoots!). Perhaps it was the relative warmth that brought out the birds this morning, but walking to the bus I saw dozens of feathery creatures flitting and whistling.

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,
'I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

- Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Photos: "Polar Sleigh" from Paper D'Art; American Tree Sparrow by Altrendo Nature photos from Getty Images.