The Month of Janus
Did you know that January was named after Janus, the god with two faces? Which perhaps explains why I will often check the weather in New England on particularly nice days here in Monterey. The mercury is expected to climb toward record territory today here – somewhere in the 70s – while back in Exeter, New Hampshire where I spent three winters, they’re expecting the temperature to climb from below zero to a high of 13. Good luck.
I was a few days shy of my fifteenth birthday when I arrived at the Phillips Exeter Academy; Oedipus cast off by Laius, ostensibly because the local high school was on triple sessions. That first year was a particularly dismal experience, especially the second trimester which began in January.
Bleak didn’t begin to describe it. It was difficult to find any hint of color in the landscape. Even the evergreens seemed merely another shade of grey. Worse, it was an all boys school; had been since it was founded almost two centuries earlier. It became co-ed the year after I left; it was not cause and effect.
The weather this week in New England was described as so cold that even the skiers are staying in doors. The right-wing pundits whose lips haven’t already frozen are pointing at the thermometer and claiming proof that global warming is myth.
No doubt many back east are looking forward to February 2nd, hoping that Pauxitawny Phil will emerge under dark skies and winter won’t last but into early March. Spring is the loveliest of seasons almost anywhere. In Massachusetts where I grew up, the crocuses would pop through the dark brown wet earth marking the end of winter in a most colorful fashion.
New England is also marvelous in the fall, of course. That’s why so many people who live there are willing to put up with the winter.
Meanwhile on the Central California Coast, our plum trees are getting ready to bud. No, it’s not because of global warming. It’s January.
©2009 SetonnoteS
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