The Halfway Point Between Winter And Spring

Author Judith Valente's February 2026 "How To Be" Author Newsletter

When I was a young reporter working for The Washington Post, one of my favorite months was February. A recent snowstorm not withstanding, winters in Washington were generally much milder than those I experienced growing up in northern New Jersey. I wrote for the Post’s Metro section at the time and one of my beats was the Maryland suburb of Prince George’s County. I worked out of a satellite newsroom in the county seat of Upper Marlboro, a rural town surrounded by tobacco farms.

I could feel the ground grow softer to walk on. The air exhaled an earthy scent, as if intimating the promise of new growth. To this day, February feels to me like the precipice of spring. In February, we pass the midpoint between the Winter Solstice on December 21 and the Spring Equinox on March 20. Longer daylight hours become more visibly noticeable. Spring is really coming.

The birds seem to sense this naturally, even if we still bundle in our parkas and pull on fleece-lined boots to go outside. My writing desk looks out on four windows. In recent days, I’ve watched starlings descend and ascend above my front lawn like a black flying carpet. They come to snack on the red berries on my holly bushes. Sometimes a few robins, a bluebird or a cardinal or two join them.

February also marks my favorite liturgical season of the year, Lent. A “penitential” season, Lent calls for increased prayer times, mandatory fasting, and greater charitable giving. Those of us who are Catholic abstain from eating meat on Fridays in Lent and fast from all but one full meal on certain days.

On Ash Wednesday, we line up in churches to have our foreheads smeared in black as we hear the words, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” I prefer the alternative some churches use: “Repent and listen to the good news of the gospel.”

Repent is a fascinating word. It comes from the Latin, penitire, to grieve, to regret. It’s a good thing to periodically take a hard look at our behavior, to recall the words and actions we regret, to recognize what patterns in our lives need to be re-formed.

I recently came across a series of Lenten reflections that the great Catholic peace activist Eileen Egan wrote in 1998 for National Catholic Reporter. I’m writing a biography for Orbis Books of Egan, a close friend and traveling companion of both Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day.

Egan called Lent “a time of special mindfulness.” She wrote, “We can only truly regret something if we remember the wrongs of which we are guilty.” Makes sense to me.

Lent forces us to face our mortality. “Day by day, remind yourself you are going to die. Hour by hour, keep careful watch over all you do,” St. Benedict exhorts in his “Rule” for living a virtuous life. Our life span does not extend infinitely. Lent asks of us, how are we spending our time? What kind of person do we want to be?

Egan saw in prayer, fasting and acts of charity “weapons of the spirit.” She thought we needed to wield those “weapons” on a regular basis to counteract the continuous evils of the world, including war, discord, social and political injustice.

In her National Catholic Reporter essays, she wrote of practicing “little Lents” throughout the year. One of her practices, she said, was to forgo lunch on Fridays as an offering of penance for the ills of the world.

She recalled the efforts of her friend Dorothy Day and 18 other women who fasted for several days during the Second Vatican Council in order to convince church leaders to issue a strong statement supporting nonviolent practices for resolving conflicts. When the Council document, “The Church in the Modern World,” came out, in 1965, it not only contained a forceful condemnation of war in the nuclear age as a sin against God and mankind, it also affirmed the right of conscientious objectors to refuse to kill.

We are living through a dark period currently, Armed, masked federal agents troll American streets, terrorizing citizens and non-citizens alike. We have an administration in Washington that defies court orders, labels political opponents “insurrectionists,” bullies other countries, and tries to intimidate the press. Many in the U.S. and around the world no longer recognize this as America. Perhaps “little Lents” and other acts of penance are in order.

Some glimmers of change are beginning to emerge, like that hint of spring I used to experience during my Februarys in Washington. People made their voices heard during two boycotts of retail sales last month. Many are engaging in email and phone call campaigns, urging members of Congress to reign in the tactics of federal immigration agents. Public demonstrations, largely peaceful, are taking place across the country.

What are your thoughts? Do you view February as part of winter’s “long loneliness” (to borrow a phrase of Dorothy Day’s), or like the birds, can you sense something new and more positive emerging? What “little Lent” practices might you take up? What helps you cope in these turbulent times?

I’d love to hear your comments. Feel free to comment below.

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Special Events Coming Up In February

I am thrilled to announce three public events in February. For my friends in the Bloomington-Normal, IL area, I will be at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore February 14 from 2 to 3 p.m. Central Time for a conversation with local columnist Susan Hazlett about my latest book, The Italian Soul: How to Savor the Full Joys of Life (Hampton Roads/Red Wheel Weiser, Boston, 2025). We’ll be discussing what we can learn from Italians, a people who have made an art of living more mindfully, joyfully and soulfully. The program is free.

On February 7, I will be guiding an online mini-retreat on “Contemplaging: Growing More Contemplative As We Age,” from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Central Time, sponsored by the Chicago Cenacle. As Cynthia Bourgeault writes in an essay on Conscious Aging, “Do not confuse physical vitality or youthfulness with being vital. Vitality comes from inside, the fruit of inner work. Being vital will shine through even a shattered container.”

We will explore what can keep us spiritually vital, and what new seeds might be germinating in us. To register, please visit: https://cenaclesisters.org/event/contemplaging-a-retreat/

For those in the Chicago area, I will be presenting at the annual Lenten Prayer Series, sponsored by St. Xavier University. My talk on “Touching the Sacred through Poetry” will take place Feb 25 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Central Time in the university’s McDonough Chapel. Program is free. Many thanks to Dr. Jenny DeVivo, the university’s vice president for mission, who organizes the Lenten program. For further information, please contact Dr. DeVivo at devivo@sxu.edu.

Please see the “Upcoming Events” section in this newsletter for details on some of my other public talks and retreats.

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The 2026 “Benedictine Footprints” Pilgrimage

This happy group of folks is enjoying a wine-tasting during the 2025 “Benedictine Footprints” contemplative, cultural, culinary retreat/pilgrimage to lesser-known parts of Italy. “Benedictine Footprints” is an immersive, “slow tourism” experience of small-town Italian life that allows all who come to build relationships with local residents, enjoy local customs and foods, while having ample time for prayer, sharing and contemplation with members of the group.

Registration is currently open for this year’s retreat, Sept. 2 to 17. Sept. 2 and 17 are travel days.

We can only accommodate a small group, and the retreat has had a waiting list in each of the past three years. If you are interested, please email me as soon as possible at JValente17@msn.com

We will again be offering the most popular parts of the past years’ retreats, including a visit inside the ruins of a 9th century Benedictine monastery tucked beneath soaring gorges alongside pristine fresh-water springs. The ruins are normally off limits to tourists.

We will have a delicious multi-course seafood dinner on one of the “trabocchi” fishing huts that sit on stilts in the Adriatic Sea, a sight seen only in the Abruzzo region. We will also enjoy a picnic prepared by one of Italy’s most creative chefs alongside the Tirino River, considered Europe’s most pristine waterway. Chef Alfonso uses only foods grown in the rich soil of his region, and seafood harvested from the Tirino. The wine he makes from his own grapes is also a treat.

We will also experience one of the colorful street festivals in which a life-size statue of the Madonna is carried through the streets to music, prayer and song. Truly a moving sight to see.

The retreat will end with an outdoor audience at the Vatican with Pope Leo, the first American pope. This was a highlight for those on the journey last year, the “grande finale,” as one retreat members described it.

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Reading Room

Most of my reading this past month has been in preparation for the online “Contemplaging” retreat for the Chicago Cenacle. Here are a few books I recommend on the subject of aging with grace:

Aging Starts In Your Mind. Notker Wolf. Paraclete Press. 2017. Wonderful, funny, entertaining book by the late Abbot Primate of the Benedictine order, who was a musician, theologian, writer, poet and person who lived life to the fullest.

The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Connie Zweig. Park Street Press. 2021. A useful guide for understanding how our roles change over the course of a lifetime and how one’s later years can be a period of growth and spiritual renewal. Zweig offers concrete advice on ways to not only accept this time of life but savor it.

Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. Mary Catherine Bateson. Vintage Books. 2011. Bateson, a cultural anthropologist and daughter of Margaret Mead, spoke with dozens of people in their seventies and eighties seeking to remain vital and engaging. Although I didn’t find this book as helpful as the others (maybe I’m not old enough yet!), I did enjoy to sections about her friendship with actress/ activist Jane Fonda, who at 88, is still active, curious, engaged and engaging.

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Cucina Italiana

My go-to, easy-to-prepare pasta dish these days is one I found on the wonderful Recette Perfette YouTube site.

Ingredients

4 lemons

pint of cream

one clove of garlic

olive oil

Parmesan cheese

fettuccini or linguini

Method

Dribble some olive oil in a pan and brown a clove of garlic

Add pint of cream to pan

Grate rind of one lemon into the pan

Cut up four lemons and squeeze juice into cream, mixing well

Leave four of the halved lemons in the sauce

Grate about a quarter of a wedge of Parmesan into the mixture

When all the ingredients have had time to blend, take out the garlic clove

Add cooked, strained fettuccini or linguini directly to the sauce

Let stand for a while so the lemon flavor spreads nicely in the pasta

Serve garnished with chopped parsley and grated Parmesan

Very easy to make and delicious to taste!

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Upcoming Events

It is always a pleasure to see you either in person or online at one of my events. If you wish to arrange for a retreat or other event, please write to me at JValente17@msn.com. In addition to the February events listed above, here is what’s coming up in March:

March 7

In Person Retreat

“To Pray and Live in Our Current Times”

Spring Workshop sponsored by Contemplative Outreach of Chicago, The Well Retreat Center, and Dominican University

9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. Central Time

Dominican University, Oak Park IL

Contact: Al Krema at alkrema@gmail.com or Rachel Hart Winter at rhartwinter@dominican.edu’

March 18

In Person Presentation

“La Dolce Vita: What Italy Can Teach Us About Living More Mindfully and Joyfully”

St. Peter’s University, Jersey City, NJ

Time 6 p.m. Eastern Time with dinner to follow

Building: TK

Contact: Elizabeth Kornstein at ekornstein@saintpeters.edu

March 21

In Person Presentation

“La Dolce Vita: What Italy Can Teach Us About Living More Mindfully and Joyfully”

St. Barnabas Church/ St. Joseph Celebration

10134 S Longwood Dr., Chicago, IL 60643

3 p.m. – 4 p.m. with St. Joseph Table Dinner to Follow

Contact: Margie Wegrzyn at mwegrzyn@stbarnabasparish.org or Mark Piper at mpiper@cenaclesisters.org

March 27 -28

Zoom Retreat

“Two Themes from Thomas Merton: The Search for Home and Contemplative Prayer”

Sophia Spirituality Center, Mount St. Scholastica Monastery, Atchison KS

Contact: Donna Coleman at sophia@mountosb.org

March 29

In Person Poetry Reading from “How to Be a Contemplative: Poems and Brief Reflections by Judith Valente”

Sunday Salon Chicago at Roscoe Books, 2142 W. Roscoe St, Chicago IL

2 p.m. Central Time

For more information please visit: https://sundaysalon-chicago.com/

or contact Ignatius Valentine Aloysius at ignatius2u@gmail.com or Roscoe Books at 773-857-2676

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Some Parting Thoughts For February

“The image that nourishes me is of a great stream of light, a stream of love pouring incessantly over humanity. By our will we become permeable to it, and it can become a presence in the darkness of existence.” Eileen Egan

We’ll be back next month! Enjoy the short but consequential month of February. And may you have a meaningful Lent.

(Photo courtesy of Pat Leyko Connelly)

Thank you for reading this newsletter. It comes to you free. Those who choose to donate on the Subscriber page to support this work will receive either a signed copy of Judith Valente’s latest book, “The Italian Soul,” or her new poetry collection, “How to Be a Contemplative: Poems and Brief Reflections.”

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