Getting through "the Febs"

We're continuing to slog our way through "the Febs"--29 days (this year) of an in between time for sure. One day it's dark and dreary and 30 cold degrees. The very next day can be bright with winter sun which takes all the edge off the day before. We always have one day in the 70s or high 60s--the meanest tease there can be! And every other day is a weather mixture of unknown predictability.

This year Lent does not fall in February until its last days (the 26th) which gives us weeks and weeks of ordinary days, a few feasts interspersed and lots of pre-Lent preparation time. (i.e. We're learning new songs in both the monastery schola and handbell choir).

In my more personal choices to get through "the Febs" we have added the excellent British movie The Crown, as our local library has both Seasons One and Two available for borrowing. I saw them both a couple years ago, but am pleasantly surprised how many details and dialogue I don't remember well on this second viewing. Those Brits are such fine actors and the dialogue in these historical fiction dramas is marvelous (think Mash or West Wing as roughly suitable comparisons.)

Add that my friend, Anne, just finished Where the Crawdads Sing; a first novel by a wildlife scientist that just spent 27 weeks on the top of the NY Times best seller list, and she is begging me to read it---there's another getting through "the Febs" option.

Our prioress just came back from a meeting in a small town on the southern border of South Dakota...hmmmm maybe I should re-read Kathleen Norris's Dakota that was another unique and very attractive look at the upper mid-west---where we have a number of Benedictine monasteries and abbeys, BTW. "Go west young monk/young sister" and west they did go: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakotas, Idaho, Oregon, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Arizona...California.

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