The Lovely Thing About Winter

Winter comes every year and, in most of the world, is colder than the rest of the year. Winter has a 100% rate of accuracy; it always comes and it is always cold. In recent history, winter has never forgotten to blow round and bring with it several months of low temperatures. Yet I have found, with a mixture of amusement and despair, that everywhere I go are people in denial of the regularity of winter. As soon as the leaves are off the trees, the grumbling begins. Even Christmas fails to coax some appreciation from the shivering, bundled populace. They turn their eyes down and in. Down on the dark, frozen ground and in on their chilly, aching selves. And they miss out on a season of magic.

My house is nestled in one of those wonderful, remote, sylvan places of the world mostly forgotten by mostly everyone. Except the birds. Birds everywhere. Birds in rainbow droves hopping over the snow, darting through the trees, fluffed out in their brightest winter foliage. When all the world is white and gray, have you ever noticed a cardinal bobbing and darting across a field like a red shooting star? Have you ever noticed a brilliant blue jay clinging to a tree branch like a tatter of blue flag? In winter, birds are like spatters of color on a blank canvas, more brilliant and fascinating, bringing more joy and wonder to me than they ever could in spring.  

Have you ever noticed the sky in winter? Baby blue in morning with lazy, cotton fluff clouds. Clearer than glass at night, the stars like sugar scattered on black velvet. Steely gray, dropping tiny gems of crystal and diamond. In the evening, when the sky is clear, the angle of the sun creates a certain golden light that gilds the landscape in a uniquely intense and wintery way.

And I haven’t even mentioned the music of winter wind, or the sparkle or iced trees, or the splendor of a pink sunrise on a freshly fallen snow.

Winter can be cold, and dark, and inconvenient, but it is also beautiful and majestic. If we try, if we draw our eyes up and out and look around us so that we not only see but also observe, then winter becomes more a collage of sparkle and glister than dusk and dank. Open your eyes and you will begin to discover all the lovely things about winter.