TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

Despite February being my birth month, it is easily my least favorite month of the year. The winter weather in the Midwest is brutal. By mid-January, the twinkling lights and holiday cheer that make December bearable are gone. By February, I’m over it — the dirty icebergs on the side of the road, shoved over by snowplows, the gray sky, the depressing lack of natural light. I’m over all of it.

There’s a reason so many Midwesterners struggle in the fall and winter months. Seasonal Affective Disorder, known as SAD (which might be too on the nose as an acronym), is a type of depression related to seasonal changes. With SAD, you might feel more tired, more irritable, and less motivated than usual. You might notice yourself isolating, sleeping in more. 

Whenever we go a few days without much sunlight in Ohio, I get out my SAD light, turn it on, and sit in front of its bright white glow for about a half hour. Maybe it should be called a HAPPY light instead. Light therapy isn’t a “cure” for the winter blues, but it does help. Maybe I should close my eyes and listen to the sound of ocean waves next time, pretend I’m at the beach.

By February, what I REALLY want for my birthday is spring. Give me sunshine and daffodils and leaves finally sprouting on the trees. Give me blue skies and birdsong. Spring fever in the Midwest is real, because we’ve been waiting so long for the thaw. When it finally happens, you’ll see college students wearing tee shirts and shorts, and people dining on restaurant patios again, even though the temperature might only be in the 50s and 60s. Fifty-five feels downright balmy after weeks, or even months, of single-digit temperatures!

Today’s poem captures the essence of February — the color, the tone — but it also makes me think about my birth month in a new way. A more tender way.

February
by Jim Moore

There are days called February. The word gray is given the keys to the city. 
Sometimes  tenderness arrives out  of nowhere,  stays for a moment,  and 
then is gone.  Like a grown child who  leaves  home to make  her way in the 
world.  She  goes  away,  she  returns,  then  goes  away  again.  You remain 
behind.  She seems to understand you have no choice, but to be who you 
are. Understands what it means to be February. She knows how lucky she
is to have left home. To have left you behind. You know how lucky you are
to have known her, even if only during one brief visit or another.

“February" by Jim Moore from ENTER © 2025 Jim Moore. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press.