Jan. 9, 2024

It’s a tough time of year. Winter and I don’t get along well for a lot of different reasons. Some trivial, some not.

Right now I have a cold (again!), I’m wiped out, and if I don’t work at preventing it, I feel like I’m trapped.

Trapped in a cold, white box, big as the world, small as the chance of seeing green grass, bleak as a really good Cormac McCarthy novel.

On top of the personal stuff that adds a jagged, icy layer to my situation, my feelings are also intensely … existential this year. The weather is a daily reminder that we’re at a tipping point, and we can barely muster interest.

But we can only control so much, right? So I’m turning inward. Figuring out the same thing I do every year at this time: what do I need to do to take care of me?

I’m figuring it out. I really hope part of the answer involves pizza rolls and B-movies.

Not coincidentally, Brian Wilson’s 1998 song, Love & Mercy, is a perennial favorite about this time of year. Especially the version on the 1995 Wilson documentary, I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. It’s beautiful.

I hope wherever you are this winter, whatever you’re facing, love and mercy are on your to-do list.

I was lyin’ in my room and the news came on t.v.
A lotta people out there hurtin’ and it really scares me