"Beauty demands for itself as much courage and decision as do Truth and Goodness, and she (Beauty) will not allow herself to be seperated from her two sisters.."
Von Balthasar

March always begins with celebration. Ojciec claims the first, his birthday has always reminded me of apple pie and hopes of spring. My husband has the second now, and his brithday was salmon and chocolate and snow; but still with hopes of spring. Now, the third, St. Winwillow's we have snow piled in the center of the road and blue skys. March is a lovely month. I have not been social recently, except with my husband and my books; but I mean well. I am so full of distractions, of Lent and Marquez and the need for ritual in life. I would like to sweep up the dust collecting in my loved one's lives and order them towards beauty, but I am not God, so I content myself with prayer and my own glorious home.

"Christusque nobis sit cibus,
potusque noster sit fides;
laeti bibamus sobriam
ebrietatem Spiritus."
St. Ambrose

(Let Christ be our food and faith our drink; let us happily drink the sober inebriation of the Spirit.)

Lent is my favourite liturgical season. I love to begin with such hope and high expectation. It is not, our dear priest reminded us yesterday, a time of morbid thoughts and dark dwellings; but a time of penitence, during which we may "happily drink the sober inebriation of the Spirit" without the distraction of food and drink.

Surrendering to the rhythms of the Church, fasting and feasting according to the season, is so freeing, and so satisfying. Having feasted at Christmas, and all through Carnival, I begin Lent now, longing for nothing so much as a good, long, purifying fast. When Lent has refreshed me, I being to long for the feasting of Easter.

We celebrated Mardi gras with some friends on Tuesday, and unfortunately are left with some extra paczki. They are sitting on top of the kiln, waiting to be eaten, full of strawberry, raspberry, and my sister-in-law's fig jam. I wonder if they can be frozen with any success.

"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest."
- Hemingway

Yesterday and today have been lovely, warm, and wet days; and I have wandered all around town without my gloves and without worrying about my destination. It is too warm for worrying and too pleasent for staying in. Even this afternoon, under the heavy clouds it is a day for being outdoors and breathing the spring air. I know the warmth won't last - it's too early for true spring, but I am enjoying what I have while I can.
St. Valentine's day is on Saturday. It is also the feast of Sts. Cyril & Methodius. They are the patron's of my old Ukrainian church and I never think of them without thinking of that lovely parish. It was, without a doubt the most welcoming parish I have ever belonged to, fully orthodox, beautifully adorned, and so wonderfully passionate.
I'm surprised to hear that so many people hate Valentine's day. Either because they're single or because flower's are more expensive and restaurants more crowded on this day! I love Valentine's day. When I was single I loved going out with my single friends and now I love going out with my husband. I love celebrating love and joy and friendship. If flowers are more expensive and restaurants more crowded, it's only once a year, and it's fun being in the thick of everything, waiting an hour for dinner, and compare overpriced flowers with the dozen other couples waiting with us.

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."
Ernest Hemingway

I love overhearing conversations. There were two guys next to me just now talking about protest music. I wanted to tell them about the great labor songs of the early 20th century, but I didn't want to interupt. The guy with the plaid scarf talked about sixties protest songs, and mentioned that he knew that "a bunch of old folk songs are protesting stuff too." He would love to teach a class on protest songs, and to discover more. His friend, I think, has heard all this before, but I hadn't, and I was interested. Plaid Scarf and his friend replaced a group of girls comparing lip piercings and dietary restrictions. Having twice been vegetarian, I'm always interested in why people leave off eating meat. The girls ranged from fish-eaters to vegans and excessively pierced to unpierced. Now, in front of me is a couple on their first date. She has fantastic eyes and he is an enthusiastic talker. I think they'll have a second date.
I love people in general, even if I don't always like particular people. As strangers, they're so pleasant and interesting. I think I could find something about most people I see to like. I remember reading that God loves us because He puts His goodness into us and then finds it there. I've always liked that image, God continually surprised and thrilled to discover His joy in each and every one of us!

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
E. B. White

I have been getting very little done in the last week or so besides working my way happily through much of Jane Austen, some of Tolstoy, the Polish pope, and C.S. Lewis. It has been a week of snow piles and cold days. Days that urge so sweetly that I curl up on the blue seat with tea and peppermints and my latest book.

That's not to say I've done nothing else, but anything productive that I've managed to do this week was done in bursts of time, between books, and done with a restless energy that only takes me away from reading so that I can think about what I've read, run over it all in my mind again and dwell on my favorite bits. I love these breaks in life, when I fall headlong into my books and come out again refreashed and encouraged from having learned again how to see the world in a new and beautiful way.

"The earth is like a child that knows poems."
Rainer Maria Rilke

It is little wonder that carnival comes in the darkest days of winter. What else can we do when the sun sets so early and rises so late, and the icy grey outdoors insists that we add rum to coffee to ward off the chill? We must celebrate! Meat must be eaten extravagantly, liquor drunk indulgently, and laughter and music must be loud enough to make even the cold nights warm.

I spend most of my days indoors now, baking bread and carnival indulgences or writing in the blue room with tea and toast beside me. Because I am so often inside, my excursions in the snow have taken on a thrill of adventure. In my long coat and high boots I feel almost equal to the biting wind and the snow drifts that would overwhelm me if I dared walk through them. My winter walks chill and exhilarate me, afterwards the apartment is warmer and cozier than I left it, the tea tastier, and the toast, with it’s film of melted butter, beyond compare. I cannot imagine being less than enthralled with the bounteous variety of life, as I’ve recently discovered, some in our Środowisko are. When God presents us with an opportunity to see, to experience beauty in some form or another, we must not pass it by because literature, modern art, or hiking are not our passions! God does not limit His gift of beauty to those whose thoughts fall within certain parameters, and many people are able to grasp beauty to a certain degree without having met the Author of beauty; in many ways they come closer to knowing Him than those who, claiming to love Him, despise His wilder expressions of joy.

"He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. "

~Henry David Thoreau

I am marinating salmon for tonights dinner. I've wrapped it in lemon infused olive oil, raw honey, garlic, scallions, mangos, and chard; now it is waiting at home for the flavors to come together. My husband loves this meal. For us the value of a beautiful meal, arranged well and tasting excellence, is exceptionally high.

We were blessed Sunday with another foot of snow and warmer temperatures. I love the new snow, I love trudging through it, listening to it crunch and creak and crash as it tumbles off branches. Last week in the cold we kept ourselves warm with hot cocoa, irish coffee, cafe au rum, hot tea. This week, with our space heater off, we can enjoy plain water again and pad around barefoot on the cool floor.