February 1 marked Imbolc, the Celtic season of beginnings, quickening, expecting. Even with uncertainty about future variants, fears of inflation and tirades by inflammatory politicians, I still resonate with the subtle awakening around me, like a hand laid on a pregnant stomach to feel the kicks of “here I come.” Not quite spring, but something waiting in the wings. More birds return to the feeder, often battling over precedence. Occasional balmy days get slapped down by cold winds. A genteel Lady Banks rose tentatively blooms in the yard while a fearsome, bright-red stinkhorn fungus emitting its signature rotting-corpse smell springs out of the mulch below. Nature is on the move, and it’s not always watercolor pretty. This is the season of getting ready, of work going on in the belly of the earth, and the birth and blossoming will be fierce and hopeful and oblivious to our exhausting human jackassery.

I’ve been lurking around the Mounser web site for months, coveting one of their Ring Pops. I love that they’re blatantly fake and fabulous and look like something a diva or cartoon character would wear. But would one be enough? 

I follow the Twitter account of @AuschwitzMemorial, which posts the photos and fates of people who were sent to the camp. The most heartrending ones, the ones you can never forget, are the infants and children who were murdered in the gas chambers. The Daffodil Project aims to plant 1.5 million of the flowers as a living memorial of the children who were slaughtered and in support of children who are suffering in humanitarian crises today. At a time when anti-Semitic crimes are surging worldwide, it’s more important than ever to take a stand. Donations welcome.

I’m late to discover Dream of a House about writer Reynolds Price and the house he lived in for decades, the last 27 years spent in a wheelchair. After Price died, his family approached the authors to document the rooms before it was sold and the furnishings and art dispersed. I expected the typical coffee table book when a friend loaned it to me, but the photographs of the interior of his house interspersed with excerpts of his writing form an intertwined biography, with the writer and house shaping each other in the most intimate and unforgettable way. 

The next Joy of Writing Workshop that Stephanie Hunt and I will be offering at Redux Contemporary Art Center in downtown Charleston will be on February 23 from 6-8 pm. (Find us in the Classes and Workshops section.) Each monthly workshop has a new theme with new exercises—we’d love to see you there.