give us a smile, february

It's hard to believe a whole month has passed in 2020 and it's already a garbage year. (I'm just kidding, we all knew this was going to happen.) It's only just started being February where I am; the wind has picked up in the past few hours and it almost sounds like a storm out there. It's not, of course, but sometimes it's nice to pretend, isn't it?

I'm trying to write something on or around Saturday every week. Structure helps when you're trying to clear the cobwebs out of your brain, to find a cadence you can live with once again. So far the stories have been shifting wildly between genres and characters and settings, and this will probably continue, so, you know, be aware.

I never really liked February. At best it's the month where winter has really worn out its welcome and you spend the whole month dreaming of spring, imagining what it will be like when the sun is shining and the flowers are out and yet it's still so far away. Last year, after a particularly mild winter, it was easy to believe that February would just be more of the same. Then it snowed for two weeks straight. The city shut down. Winter does not like to go down without a fight.

When I wrote my weird themed stories back in 2013, February's theme was isolation. It's a cold and lonely month, after all. This year I'm going with "mo(u)rning", as suggested by effika. Maybe the parentheses weren't supposed to stay there, but I like the contrast there. It can be lively, it can be solemn.

Anyway, stay tuned for more of that sweet, sweet content. Feel free to throw more theme suggestions at me for next month, or for your favorite month down the road. (Guidelines: one word, maybe two. Thematic. Bonus points if it is seasonally appropriate, because I love me some seasons.)