Dear January

I love:

1. Ultra soft Kleenex, steeping mugs of Earl Grey, honey, ginger, Egyptian licorice tea, and dark chocolate cocoa.

2. Driving around my winter-splattered white Fiat without two front hubcaps for over a month, gangster style.

3. Being twenty-five minutes into a swim, in the red bathing suit (with a thready hole the size of my cat’s mouth), holding the side of the pool to stand on one leg and grasp the opposite ankle, stretching it behind me as far as it will go, in dancer pose.

3. Less mucus, less chapped upper lip, and more smiling, spotting that gray, plump, fluffy squirrel, high on a limb, eating dried orange peel.

4. Seeing a black rooster with white spots across the street from my mechanic.

5. “Dave,” the redhead mechanic with his name sewn in cursive on his oil-streaked dove jumpsuit. He aligns the hubcap with the tire’s air valve. And with both hands, he pounds, pounds, pounds on the hubcaps. Goodbye, gangster style.

6. My sister texting: No doom scrolling!

7. Waking up thinking about high school, when we studied the French Revolution. I was around 15 years old, and I felt sorry for the peasants, relieved I didn’t grow up in the 1700s. What a way to go through life! My history and music teacher, Mr. Don Kawash, once wore two different black shoes to school and was a virtuoso ragtime pianist. He said to the class before our exam, “You will always get points for writing the peasants are rising. Not the pheasants are rising.” I always got those mixed up.

Now, I realize I am a working-class peasant, horrified by astronomical healthcare costs for 20 million people during the flu season.

8. Picking up The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (a gift from a friend) instead of scrolling.

9. Picking up 5-pound purple hand weights, seeking to build muscle.

10. Picking up The Wild Why by Laura Munson instead of scrolling.

11. Recommending, on Instagram, four beloved female authors who write about craving solitude and befriending oneself.

12. The smell of slicing open an orange, peeling away the skin, and seeing the spray make a fermament of star-like ripples in a soaking jam jar in the sink.

13. Awakening to Oscar perched on my shoulder, blinking, purring, Hi, Mom.

Hi, Beautiful Boy.

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My mantra:

Steady is joy.

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See you next week,

Jennifer Schelter

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