February is a short month and for that I am grateful.  That there are only twenty-eight cold, grey days slouching into one another seems like trickery when all is said and done--Valentine's Day was at least three weeks ago, right?

Oh.  Wait.

Today staunchly remains February, and Valentine's Day was ten days ago, not 21.  The bleak midwinter, indeed.  It's even drizzling rain.

Rather than weak and wearily ponder today's dreariness, I'm thinking instead of past February escapes.

In February of 2005 I traveled to Europe for the first time.  

I journaled (on February 28, specifically):

I spent the last week with those lines I've so loved undulating in my head. Watched them manifest as that which was always imagined became real. I stood outside Dublin Castle with my beloved at midnight as "His soul swooned slowly..." existed as a sort of internal monologue, growing louder and more profound with each faintly falling flake of snow.

We walked two miles down the freezing street to find seven Eccles in the dark, stopping at the Caulfield Hotel for drag shows and Elvis impersonators as well as 80's night and the humble disco.

A very pink nudist made his way to the Irish Sea as we ventured toward the Martello Tower. 

Mary, drunken star of the sea, recited "The light of evening, Lissadell,/Great windows open to the south,/Two girls in silk kimonos, both/Beautiful, one a gazelle"  to her American friends, for whom she bought Bailey's. She flaunted her red scarf about as she sang Edith Piaf songs, sashaying before the fire with her dancing dogs.

She said I had a beautiful smile.

Dublin was dear and dirty and the sea snotgreen and eve and adam's was passed with a "hee!" that travelled far far down the liffey. I carried lemon soap in my pocket.

The rain isn't letting up, it seems, but the sun is beginning to shine a bit.  I'm hopeful that this new corner of e-space will allow me to recall the past, evaluate the present, and consider the future.