February: A Love Letter

Month of despair, excitement and horror.

From left: The Pink Rose, Federico Andreotti, The River At Sunset, Charles Guilloux, and text from February, a poem by Margaret Atwood.

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February. Haze of confusion. Fatigue, mingled excitement and horror—how Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay described these twenty-eight days.

February, month of despair, with a skewered heart in the centre, Margaret Atwood mused in a poem named for the month.

And then there’s Anne Sexton:

Do not rely on February (…) The sun in this month begets a headache like an angel slapping you in the face.

It’s true, the sun is less shy now, at least where I am. Skies are Freezie blue and cloudless. Everything is coated in either snow, grime, or salt—the roads, cars, our boots—but there is beauty to be found in the filth, the ordinary. February atones for what January lacked in magic.