Ode to January...when things curl up to rest

We will be going to the Boston area in a few days. Our oldest son and wife and two of our precious grandchildren live there. While there, we will attend the opening of the American Tapestry Biennial 8 in Lowell, MA. I am really looking forward to it! It will be wonderful to go to one of the receptions when I am just one of the artists, and not someone who has to worry about exhibit management details. My calendar tapestry, "January," shown above, is the piece that is in the exhibit. It was woven from the view from my sitting room window, last winter. The view is pretty much the same now, in fact.

The amaryllis that I have been enjoying for the past few months has spent it's bloom. The wilted blossoms are still so appealing to me, that they were the subject of my daily sketch this morning, one more time. I have cut it from the plant now, but will try to keep the plant going. I used to be able to do that; keep an amaryllis and have it bloom several years in a row. But it's been a long time since I've done that successfully, so I have in recent years pitched the plant once the bloom is spent, and have started a fresh bulb the next fall. This year, though, I am going to try again to keep this bulb going. I discovered a link at the Better Homes and Gardens site that tells how to do it differently, and hopefully more reliably successful, than I have done it in the past. I don't like to throw the spent bulbs away. It's not just that it feels wasteful, to such a frugal person as I am, but I always feel like I have killed a living thing, that just needed to rest for awhile before it created beauty once again, like we all sometimes need to do, especially in January.



I guess this post is not really much of an 'ode to January,' so I will leave you with a haiku:

The freezing winter
Leads us inside where we can
Curl up and keep warm.