January is a plunge into icy waters, a dive off the high board. That's the bracing part of it, the embarking-on-a-new year part of it.
January can be a brisk incentive, a long and relatively uncluttered month with time to get your teeth cleaned and update the will.
January provides plenty of inside hours for making soup and baking cookies. There's hot chocolate and reading in bed when the snow is falling.
But there's one thing that January does better than any other month. It slows time. It's the one month that takes forever to finish, that doesn't seem like it's over before it's begun, that helps me catch my breath in this great, whirling craziness that is "midlife." January stops zenosyne cold in its tracks.