The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect

...and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

This is a Good Point. I have now heard of Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and best selling author. (It must be pretty galling that someone hadn't heard of you when you've achieved so much)

Looking at the state of my office, many, especially Peter, would doubt my assertion that I'm a perfectionist.

N.B. This is not my office. I can tell because there are no ciabatta crumbs on the desk.

I'm a perfectionist about my writing, though. That's good and bad.

Good because I'm always striving and get good results that my clients appreciate so I get more and more commissions. Bad because I'm always striving and my good results are rarely good enough for me which makes me strive some more and exist in a permanent state of frustration or anxiety or self-doubt, driven by fear of failure.

I don't ever want to stop striving.

I do want to stop giving myself such a hard time.

The thing is...HOW?

Well, I could JUST STOP IT.

February is a suitable month for dying.

"...Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots two months hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long."

by Ilona Wellman

That's a bit on the harsh side saying that, Anna Quindlen,  (American author, journalist, and New York Times columnist.) Just a touch...miserable, don't you think?

I mean, I NEVER complain about the weather do I? Much. Today, as it happens, There Is No Sleet. There is, instead, brilliant sunshine. (I must try writing letters to God more often.)

Is it something about Americans, this hate of a perfectly good month?


"The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February, " said Joseph Wood Krutch. Joseph Wood Krutch? You couldn't make up a name like Joseph Wood Krutch.

 (Except, he claims Krutch is pronounced Krootch. Well, you would, wouldn't you?)

Nope, I don't intend to die in February. I don't plan on being pessimistic. (That's as long as there's no sleet.)

February is a suitable month for BURSTING FORTH.

The witch hazel tree in my garden tells me so.

The witch hazel tree may live to regret it.