The Winter Light

Having grown up in California, when I moved to places with more varied climate, I learned to embrace the seasons.  I quickly came to enjoy them.  I found the transitional seasons of Fall and Spring especially pleasing; perhaps because they feel like seasons of anticipation.  Now, more than 25 years since I moved east, the seasons are an enormous part of my world.  The cold and the warmth; the dark and the light; they shape my days.

Even a relatively mild Winter such as the one we are currently experiencing can be a slog.  We brace ourselves to head outside, wrapped up in jackets and scarves, pulling on mittens and hats to keep the cold at bay.  When there is a sunny day, I turn my face up to the clear sky and the sunlight, feeling like a turtle who longs to sun herself.

Come January, I begin to track the sunlight.  As the dark, cold days pass, the light slowly grows a bit longer and I thumb through my garden catalogs.  In the mornings, when I bundle into the cold car, I remind myself that soon enough days of flip flops and t-shirts will arrive.

Years ago, my favorite Miss Read book reminded me that come February, the days have grown long enough for a walk in the fading light after supper.  So in January, I mark the passage of cold days and look to the salvation of February, when the daylight gets stronger and Winter’s hibernation begins to ease.