Soon It Will Be Spring

Winter wears on you, the cold and the dark hurt the soul and damage the psyche. Hibernation Blues does a good job of connecting real winter with the political winter we are just now coming out of, connecting the real climate of Washington State with the political climate in Washington, D.C.

As a country, we’ve been through a long winter – endless, in some regards. Our departing president told us to shop in a time of war, to spend what we didn’t have, to act as if sacrifice was no longer a national character trait.

During that long winter, when everything was supposed to be sunshine, we bought homes we could not afford. We invested in funds that could not sustain themselves. We made hits out of television shows in which we watched other people lose weight – virtual virtue.

Our leaders fostered a certain amnesia about our history, trying to get us to forget that we don’t torture, that we don’t hold people without trial, that we were founded by rebels demanding basic human dignity.

That winter will soon be gone, leaving us with a terrible toll. The federal deficit is now projected to be $1.2 trillion this year, even without a stimulus package. New jobless numbers on Friday will make us shudder. It will take years to sort the mess and lift the gloom.

Soon it will be spring. In a matter of days, we'll have new political leadership, which is bringing with it new hope. The depression and gloom of Winter, which led man to create holidays like Saturnalia, Yule, and Christmas will break out into the glory and rebirth of Spring, and its own holidays like Mother's Day, Passover, and Easter.

As sure as the sun will rise each morning, we can count on the seasons. Spring will always be there to replace Winter. The winter solstice, the root of our darkness and consequent holidays, will give way to the vernal equinox, itself a cause for celebration and its own holidays. The plants and animals adapt to the seasons with their own mechanisms, we human animals created holidays to nurse us through our dark times, and politics to accomplish the art of getting along in society.

Both our psyches and our politics mirror our climate - we can celebrate that Spring is coming, and with it rebirth. Winter is finally, finally about to be over.