The Center Cannot Hold

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

--W.B. Yeats

Winter Snooze

We are into that part of the winter-- it happens to me every year at some point-- where I feel like nothing so much as just sacking out on the sofa beneath my wool Indian blanket, lying there and woolgathering, or websurfing, or mostly just woolgathering, and staring off lazily into space... or maybe just settling down and taking a nap.

Something about winter rubs me this way every year at some point. I've gotten much farther through this winter before it hit me, perhaps because this winter has been unusually mild. Here we are, I feel like lazing around and taking a snooze... and in just another month we'll be heading into the milder weather. Spring won't be here, winter won't be at an end: in these parts winter hangs on into April, and last year we had a major blizzard with only about a week of April remaining. But give it another month, and the beginning of the end will be upon us, and the end of the blasted deep freeze will be in sight.