untiled

February is the most depressing month of the year. Especially in Indiana. It is cold and gray. The only snow that manages to hang on as the temperature hovers near freezing is hiding in shady places and enormous piles in Walmart parking lots. Which leaves just soggy ground and brown grass. The wind is relentless and seems to have teeth when it manages to find a chink in the armor of coats and gloves and knit hats and hits bare skin. You can see it in peoples faces - wore down by the plodding winter progress, a blank resignation reflected in their eyes. An old man steels himself for the bracing wind near the automatic doors at the entrance to the grocery store: wraps his scarf around his neck and stuffs his hands into gloves. He grips the handlebar of his shopping cart and slowly pushes it out onto the wet asphalt.