If you were asked to describe the month of January in one word, what would it be?  My candidate:  Bleak!  Bleak equates to frozen misery, and other dismal, dreary words.  

Bleak definition:  1) bare, desolate, and often windswept. 2.) cold and piercing; raw; 3) without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary.  (dictionary.com)  What a word!  How bleak it is! 

In 1852-3, Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House, a satiric novel which critiqued the English Chancery court system, which dealt with wills and estates.  Continual court hearings on frivolous issues enriched the lawyers and judges at the expense of the estate.  A bleak situation, indeed, if you were an heir watching your inheritance whittle away.  Through Dickens’ work, the Chancery Court reformed its procedures.  

Many well known poems had focused on “bleak,” usually in the sense of cold, frosty weather, as chillingly described:

  “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 

Snow had fallen, Snow on snow, Snow on snow, 

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.”  

In The Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), an English Victorian poet.

“Winds blow the open grassy places bleak;

But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek,”

Atmosphere by Robert Frost (1874—1963)

“On whom the elements their might wreak;

Save that the bustard, of those regions bleak”

Guilt and Sorrow by William Wordsworth (1770—1850)

Bleak brings no happiness and little hope.  Consider some synonyms: desolate, austere, dreary, depressing, cold, raw, grim, lonely, harsh, somber, sad, dark, gloomy, dismal, bare.  (dictionary.com)  Are you happy yet?  

Please do not give up, however, for bleak is about as low as someone or something may go.  The nadir eventually will turn toward the zenith, so just “grim and bear it,” as the calendar pages turn from January to February, when thoughts turn to ground hog predictions of fair weather.  Hopefully, the ground hog will not see its shadow, thus avoiding the bleak proclamation of six more weeks of winter.  But not to worry, for Valentine’s Day approaches when thoughts of love abound.  Even a cold lips kiss is better than a bleak no kiss at all.