A Love Note to Winter

I'm anxiously anticipating the snow. As I type this I'm looking out of my third story window at the dove greyness waiting for it to start. (Was that a flake?! No.) I know for lots of people, winter is a hellish time of year--that it is some sort of seasonal punishment or penance. The traffic, the holi-daze, the sludge, the salt to sub zero temperatures, but...

I love winter.
There, I've admitted it. I love winter.

Something about the quality of the air or the way snow absorbs colors and light sparks my imagination. Maybe in another life I was a great snowy owl, or maybe I'm simply a hopeless romantic. It conjures epic images of vast tundras and white mares with wild manes, crowns constructed of opals and icicles as well as stillness and secrets and groves of naked birches. The movement of falling snow has such a dramatic cinematic essence and yet a quietness that makes you conscious of your breath, like you're watching a prayer. It's like an incredible blue dream that I get to waltz through. And every little flake that falls is it's own piece of elaborate microscopic origami--an infinitesimally small cosmos made of chandeliers, and it's right there, right there on the lapel of my pea coat. Amazing.

"Crow Keeper" by Molly Roberts 2008

And winter nights--even more brilliant. The sky is not just black, but a deep clear onyx. Or when snow is falling in the dark, the sky becomes a beautiful mix of something like lavender down and mourning dove feathers. I like to squint at stars and pretend I could pluck them, one at at time and put them in a little parchment envelope to save for later--for something secret. And the moon, She is always the most radiant on bitter nights. Her halo stretches out in sapphire rings, casting long inky shadows over both skyscraper and field mouse house alike.

When I walk outside and the wind cuts at my face and I see the skeletons of trees, I don't think that everything is Dead. When I see branches draped with snow or icicles clinging tightly to tall grasses, it's like hearing someone whisper in a gentle and barely audible voice:

"Shhhh...go to sleep."

It's as if everything around me is resting, everything is breathing deeper, everything is dreaming. When I'm outside, I'm tempted to speak quietly as not to wake anything, step lightly as not to disturb anyone. The last thing I want is to to upset the dirts dreaming. Yes, winter comes with it's challenges, but what season doesn't? In spring there are fleshy tulip buds, as well as mold blooms and basement flooding. In summer there are trips to the beach and endless nights of no sleep because the air conditioning in your unit doesn't work and you can't stop sticking to your furniture. Fall brings an amazing pallet and pumpkin harvests as well as endless mountains of yard work and buckets of frigid rain. It's part of the cycle-- just like spring, summer and fall. By resisting it, by fighting it tooth and nail, we separate ourselves from it. And when we severe ourselves from it, we miss out on the phantasm, the stunning work that is winter.

It's now starting to flurry here, and I couldn't be more happy. I'm off to my studio to sketch Snow Queens, great cakes with frost frosting and arctic atmospheres! But first, a little hot chocolate...

What are you going to make?

Wondrous Winter Wishes and Many Blissings!~*