It is the gray-brown time of year again, the time of year when scraps of leftover snow cling in the corners of the yard, dirty and spent.  When the sky is low and dark and the sun is hidden.  When the air is not fit to breathe and I feel trapped, locked inside an inversion that sits over us relentlessly for weeks on end, snuffing out colors and draining the light out of the day.

February is my morketiden., a time of darkness when I struggle to stay above the drag of depression as the sun stays hidden in the muck of inversion.  I grew up amid pine trees and ice-blue skies, black bears rooting through the dumpster in the Kmart parking lot.  We took for granted the pristine air and the sparkling-clear water that ran glacier-cold through rivers that circled our Montana town.  The lack of light and the thought of breathing bad air are a combination that I struggle with every year.

All the more reason to count my blessings…to bring a little light into the thickening gray by remembering the shining colors of grace, the sweet moments that abound, the waiting promise of Spring.