Mud Season

I have been in a dry season of writing.

My exhaustion has been high under the constant threat of fascism taking over our state government, and fighting for the common good. Words have felt sparse as I battle the persistent, ever-present overwhelm that confronts us all. Words have felt essential, and elusive all in the same breath.

I have slowly felt myself beginning to sink back in, quietly, and gradually.

I realized I am entering mud season in more ways than one.

The late winter and early spring in Vermont, Maine, and NH gives way each year to a mysterious fifth season that the locals call “mud season.” If you know, you know. There is a time each late winter, and early spring when inexplicably mud is everywhere.

The ground can freeze so hard in the winter that when the snow really melts on those teaser days of spring, there is nowhere for the water to go. It cannot sink back into the ground, so everything begins to turn to mud. It is a waiting season, and a wading season. Our boots, pants, and socks are crusted with the telltale signs of wading through it as we wait for the earth to re-form, and take shape anew for spring.

I feel a bit like this in my writing too right now. I have been snowed in, frozen solid, with new words unable to break forth. Slowly, I am beginning to wade through the muck…