January Thaw

For the past few days, the weather has been nice. Cold at night, of course, but 50-ish during the day. In fact, some trees are budding out—the beginning of new leaves. The trees think it is springtime. Foolish trees, they have no brains and cannot read a calendar, so they don't know that we are merely going through a warm spell in winter.

At this hour it is dark and 25°F outside. That is -4°C. Very cold, but not extreme. It is not uncommon for outside temperatures to fall below 0°F during winter. But January in central Virginia is a strange month. One week will be very cold and the next week will be mild enough that a jacket is not necessary. The warm spell is called the "January thaw." The cold will return.

February is the colder month, where temps drop to 0° and a gusty wind over the chimney makes the furnace roar. Although I have a boiler, not a furnace. The difference is a furnace heats air and a boiler heats water. Despite the name, home-heating boilers are usually "hot water" boilers and they don't actually boil anything.

My room is lit by the LED monitor on my desk. A space heater blows hot air at my bare legs. It feels good. I feel blessed to have a house around me, with heat and water and food. What more can a person ask for? I don't understand people who travel thousands of miles to break things that aren't theirs, hurt people they don't know, and get themselves put into prison, when all the while a warm house in winter and a cool house in summer is all a person needs to be content. Foolish humans, they can never find contentment because they don't where to look.

You can't find contentment if you look for it in the world. You have to look for it in yourself. If you let your mind wander to the worries of the world, your contentment may be lost. Worse, you may find yourself lost. This life is the only life you are guaranteed to have. Why not choose to enjoy it?