Ice Dam

February. Up at 5:30am, watching what would be the sunrise if it weren't buried in clouds. The coyotes do my howling for me. This too shall pass. The rainstorm in the bathroom as the ice dam on the roof forces snowmelt under the shingles; the drip that startles me next to my computer one day then disappears again; the dog poop piling up along the path because the dog doesn't want to venture any further in the snow. Why is this also the month we're forced to figure our taxes? One more burden in a burdensome time. I look at what we owe, listen to the dripping of the leaky roof, wonder where it's all going to come from, search job listings online, ponder the possibilities of selling my art and because it's February and the winter weighs on me like a musty rug I'm sure that no one would want to pay me anything for photographs or anything else and it's all too costly and complicated to set up anyway and what's the point?

It's light enough out now to see a black crow in the bare tree branches. For richer and for poorer: I laughed when I repeated that vow at our wedding because we were so totally poor at the time. His divorce, my health problems and unemployment—we had nothing in the bank and a big tax debt then, too. As James said last night, "We've climbed out of holes before. We'll climb out of this one, too." Someday it might be nice to see what the "for richer" part feels like. And to live in a house where the roof doesn't leak. For 10 years in Tucson we battled a poorly designed flat roof that ponded every time it rained, which it would do every day during the monsoon season and from time to time in the winter as well. I prayed we'd have a house without roof problems here… Ah well, clearly God feels we're experts in leaky roofs now so we can handle another one. And apparently we're experts in tax debts, too! I'm becoming an expert here in snow removal and snowmelt drainage, as shown here by the lovely trench I snowblowed off the driveway so "Lake Lumsden" has somewhere to go. This afternoon we'll be bailing the area with buckets; it's 45˚ and all is melting. My father always used to say, "Get a good night's sleep and things will look better in the morning." I'm thinking, "Wait a month and things will look better in March." They always do.