Happy Padraig (War is Over)

This winter in Cleveland has been especially difficult. There was more snow than we've seen in years. Winter started earlier than usual. And winter seemed to want to end later than usual. The annual "January Thaw" was a bit of a joke. The good attitude I strive to maintain during the cabin fever months had to be burned away, just to keep the heat on in this old place.

Today looked a little like Old Man Winter got his backside handed to him by Good St. Pat. He drove the snakes out of Ireland and he drove the winter out of Cleveland. It was 60 degrees and sunny today.

I was jubilant. I jogged. I baked. I baked whole wheat bread. As long as St. Patrick, or Dick Goddard, or Mother Nature or whomever controls the weather in this town looks favorably upon us, I swear I will live like an almost unbearable health nut. I am reminded of some passage, now fuzzy from all these years since my last reading of it, from Russian literature, where everyone turns out into the St. Petersburg streets, near-manic with joy, when the warm sunshine finally returns after a wretched, cold winter.

But I do have this renewed enthusiasm, to make every food decision flawless, to celebrate everything that is fresh and light, to stretch my muscles, to breathe in deeply all that is good and clean.

Strangely, I cannot get John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Christmas song, "War is Over" out of my head. Though the season is wrong, metaphorically, it feels right today:

"War is over
If you want it
War is over
Now...."

Winter is over. Oh, how I want it. Now...to life!