I have always liked the expression, “a pregnant pause.” It means a break in conversation that is filled with possibility, but not the possibility of a baby. That would just be pregnancy.
Because I live in the northeast U.S., I always think of late fall and winter as being a pregnant pause, albeit a long one, before the good weather arrives.
The Greeks blamed this miserable period on their harvest goddess, Demeter, whose nitwit daughter, Persephone, married Hades/Pluto, the god of the underworld, and had to spend half of the year down below.(Okay, she was technically abducted, but she should have been paying attention.)
Persephone could have come back for good if she hadn’t eaten a handful of pomegranate seeds while in the underworld. Because of that, she had to go back every year. If I were going to make a deal with the devil, I’d want a hell of a lot more than a few seeds.
Demeter mourned the loss of her daughter during the months that Persephone was Queen of Hades. She was so grief-stricken that she couldn’t attend to her Mother Nature duties; thus, the land became barren and cold. Her inertia was blamed on her depression, but I personally think that it was vengeful; she wanted everyone to share in her unhappiness.
She got her wish. Those of us living with the cold and snow are all in Hades, along with her daughter. Come back soon, Persephone. Maybe you can make some pomegranate wine, get Hades drunk, and slip away when he’s sleeping?
Oh, don’t bother. You’ll probably get abducted again, anyway. Or pregnant.
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