The Market Almanac - February
A Month Between Seasons
February is not a gentle month. It does not ease you in or ease you out. It arrives with cold intention and then, just when you've made your peace with it, it offers you a 70-degree afternoon — only to threaten snow by morning. This is February's particular genius: it keeps you honest. It keeps you paying attention.
This year it kept me paying attention in ways I didn't expect. An accident, and a cancer diagnosis that followed. Many of you already know the story. What I want you to know now is that they got it all, and I am here — turning 44 this month, sitting in this store on a warm late-February morning, watching neighbors move along the old brick of Main Street, feeling the particular gratitude of someone who has been reminded, recently and firmly, not to take ordinary mornings for granted.
This morning a mother came in with her little one — just an ordinary moment, the kind that happens a dozen times a week — and I felt it land somewhere deep, the way small true things do when you've been paying closer attention than usual. I looked up from my typing, out through the glass to the brick of Main Street, and thought: yes. This is exactly where I am supposed to be.
I miss being here. This is home.
The store kept moving while I was away, because good people do what needs doing. We put in the new counter — come see it if you haven't. The new point-of-sale system is in progress. John brought in a bonsai tree, which sits here small and patient and alive, which feels exactly right for this time of year.
New on the shelves: Chobani Flips, Belvita bars (the blueberry ones are mine, fair warning), and we've expanded our selection of Alani flavors for those of you who've made them part of your morning ritual.
This past Friday the Catholic church held a fish fry — that good old Lenten rhythm of community gathering itself around a shared table — and Little River felt, for an evening, like exactly what it is.
Spring is close. The light knows it even when the thermometer argues. By the time you read this, we may have had both a shirt-sleeve afternoon and fresh snow, which is February's way of saying not quite yet — but soon. The prairie is gathering itself. The angle of the sun has shifted in that particular way it does around this time, low and golden and full of intention. Night is fading away.
We're ready.
We'll see you at The Market.
— JD and John
