Hope Yancey

I’ve gone viral, in the literal sense. As I write this, it is Day 19 of a prolonged winter cold I’ve had since around the middle of last month. 2010, it seems, wasn’t completely ready to loosen its grip on me just yet, even if I was through with it. It began with a wicked sore throat, which for me is about the worst symptom I can have. Everyone has a different threshold for tolerance of pain, whether physical or emotional, but something about the discomfort of a sore throat has always set me on edge. There’s nothing that seems to soothe the misery, either. There is no effective over-the-counter product I’ve been able to find. Home remedies like a hot cup of tea with honey or gargling with salt water are short-lived. It’s just something you have to wait out, let run its course and hope that it is over soon.

I’ve forgotten where I read it, but I just came across this quotation again: “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered it – I’ve seen variations on this expression before – but for some reason, it struck a chord with me this time. Blame it on the start of a new year. I take these words to mean that if you insist on something unattainable, you’re not going to get anywhere at all. This is different from having high standards. Standards are good.

Home and garden and lifestyle publications are replete with images of them at particular times of year, their prolific blooms emblazoned across the glossy magazine pages. Their colors – pink, blue, lavender, deep purple, lime green and white – dot the landscape of my suburban neighborhood, too, showy blossoms that come about May and herald summer’s arrival. Nurseries burst at the seams with them in the warmer months, waiting to be carried away and nurtured.

I am a fan of the holiday television specials that air on the networks this time of year, children’s programs like the “Peanuts” I fondly remember from childhood. Some of them hold as much – or more – appeal for me as an adult as they did back then, and I look forward to them with greater anticipation than is probably sophisticated to admit. There is something oddly reassuring about watching these shows year after year. I’m sure they are for sale somewhere, and I could purchase my own copies to enjoy whenever I wanted, but that wouldn’t provide the same experience.

It began like any other day in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s, when you don’t know what to do with yourself because the year is already over, but you have a few more days left to ride out before starting anew with a clean slate. The kind of day when you want to accomplish something, but everything you do feels like killing time. You’re impatient to get on with things, and for your equilibrium to return.