st. thomas's day

"no: a canadian winter for my money; or a russian one, where evry man is but a co-proprietor with the north wind in the free-simple of his own ears. indeed so great an epicure am in in this matter that i cannot relish a winter night full if it be much past st. thomas's day, and have degenerated into disgusting tendencies to vernal appearances. from the latter days of october to christmas eve , therefore, is the period during which happiness is in season..." thomas de quincey from "confessions of an english opium eater"________________________________________________________________________tom had, i think, ulterior motives in preferring a brutal winter...he was a long-time laudanum addict, "happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be corked up in a pint bottle: and peace of mind might be sent down in gallons by the mail coach."...an ample supply of the drug of choice and foul weather to insure that 1) no irritating neighbors or pesky creditors might drop by to spoil the mood...and 2) he wouldn't have to share...addicts can be a giving lot at times and their disdain for personal possessions has been called deeply anti-social in a consumerist society...but they are notoriously stingy with the drug of choice...i am, at darker times, as much of a fugitive from polite society as tom was...i get it...i don't indulge myself in tom's dislike for spring or other seasons ( gardening can be as reclusive a sport as drug use...the outside world falls away...i can get cranky if i am interrupted while working on a project...but it is a constricted business to garden in winter...and i get seeds "by the mail coach" the way tom got laudanum ) but i do indulge myself in his serial search for solitude...it is the first day of winter as well as st. thomas's day...we are nearing the end of tom's time-frame when "happiness is in season" and i am about to pull on my boots and head out to a garden to check on things...no one else will be there.