In-between Time

February is my favorite month.  Not my favorite season, that's autumn (September through November).  I don't know why February; like most things I like, it manifests as a mysterious drawing-toward.  I am attracted to it.  I like the look of it spelled out on paper, I like the feel of it on my lips.  I like that it's the shortest month and that sometimes it surprises us by adding an extra day (and still remaining the shortest!)  There's Candlemas; and Saint Valentine's Day is my favorite holy-day, after Halloween.  I chose February as the month for my wedding.  And then my first child was born the 13th.  I like how it's the end of winter.  I like liminal things, and doorways where we pause to look behind before journeying ahead.  I am a past-looking person.

I'm thrilled this year that we have a "late" Lent.  Ash Wednesday doesn't come until March, and that feels like the truest, most appropriate kind of Lent.  February is an ordinary time, and Ordinary Time, and it is during this time that life is lived, that flowers wake up--when no one is looking.