Wintertime

I’ve never really liked winter, mainly because I don’t like to be cold.  Give me a hot day anytime, but I can’t stand to be cold!  I love soup, stew, chili, and fireplaces and sweaters and fuzzy socks.  But no snow for this one, please.

I used to chafe at the winter landscape.  So dreary and empty, I thought.  No leaves, dead grass, and a cold, gray sky just made me irritable.  But now I’m older and wiser and see a new beauty in the empty trees and cold air.  I delight in the pattern of those bare branches – you don’t see that when the trees are loaded with leaves.  I see contrast, too, in the shades of gray and white, light and dark on their bark.  The brown grass and lack of plants reminds me that the earth is sleeping and preparing for spring. Shhh!

And, in the cold still air there is a silence like no other.  Even in the heart of the city on a cold day there is a stillness that seems to catch you in it, connecting you with the earth and the cycles of nature.  I find myself loving winter walks, seeing the world a little differently through the winter landscape, and embracing the cold stillness around me.  And, knowing that there is a pot of soup and the comfort of home to warm me after the walk keeps me from shivering and cursing the cold!