It's February, normally a dismal and cold month, despite the cheerful chatter of the sparrows on the telephone wires. Robins have been fluttering about the clinic for weeks now, gathering materials for new nests and preparing. Our winter has been unusually kind this year, mostly warm and rainy and more like April, what my grandmother would've called "a false spring". Flowers are in bloom too early, people say, the earth hasn't slept long enough yet and there's still time for a turnaround - perhaps we fear this good fortune and don't want to jinx it. Most people I know are exceedingly cautious about the next couple of months, as if Mother Nature might still have a punch to throw. I wonder at how we are afraid to trust a good patch won't last but so willing to believe that a bad one won't end.
The end of a comfortably busy day comes and we pack it in and head for our respective homes while it's still light. I'm still trying to puzzle out what's different - certainly not the doctor, not the patients, not the software, the weather or the light - but something has changed. I feel it in the air, in the nurses, in myself. For whatever unknown reason, we're in a good patch and the question becomes to trust or question it, expect it will last or prepare for a sudden bad end.
The wisest course may be to do nothing at all and see where it takes us. Not every year brings a false spring but not every early spring proves false and there's not much point in examining this mysterious change - it is what it is and will either continue or change again.
No comments:
Post a Comment