St. Claude de la Colombiere

connecticut gives up winter reluctantly, the top layer of snow crumpling to an ice-cratered crust, spiked with rock salt. and where the snow lifts, a season’s debris reveals itself: found art, against the brown and brown of a dead-grass canvas.

these are gloomy times, in a place that feels beyond both time and place. a forgotten santa sits on a porch-top, looking down on candy canes embedded in slush; a “happy thanksgiving” turkey placard beams out from another house.

real seasons, then. the agonising lift of winter creating an almost sexual longing for springtime. (are many connecticutians born at year’s end, I wonder, after the urges of march?)

so: do we head north this weekend, in search of rural space, or look to the coast? it’s a coin-toss.