Nature Blog #11: Cold Comforts

Wednesday, December 9, 2009
8:30am

It rained last night. A lot. I was expecting to wake up to an icy layer that coated everything. But it seems the temperature has risen, just slightly. It’s still cold. I bundled up in my husband’s jacket, knowing that if my core is at least warm, my fingers and nose will survive. It is just after morning rush hour. The steady stream of cars down Washington Blvd and Penn Ave. are slowly starting to die down. I look up to see the clouds moving quickly. They part where their gases are thin, revealing the piercing morning sun in intermittent streams.

Although it is a weekday morning, and I hear life all around me, man-made life that is: cars, buses, construction and footsteps, there is a pleasant but strong movement coming from my natural surroundings. My honey locust is completely bare now, swaying with a momentum that starts at the tip of its branches and disappears somewhere closer to its trunk. The black spruce is still full of needles, but its tiny cones have dwindled down to short skinny pods that hang along the upper ledge of branches. They look cold, as though they are hiding inside the tree’s full bushy arms, like me in my big jacket.

I try to envision what this place looked like when I first started writing this blog. Green was everywhere, highlighted by the summer light. I couldn’t see the sky and backdrop. I couldn’t see the rooftops beyond the telephone wires. I couldn’t see people inside their windows getting ready to start the day. It makes me think of how cleansing winter can feel, as though all the “fluffy” stuff (the bushes, leaves, flowers and tall grass) has been swept clean by cold winds and frost. It’s a time when we go indoors to spend our time. We live in close corridors with our loved ones, we smell the inside air, we cuddle up next to our pets and our lights, hoping to seek a similar warmth we feel outside in summer and spring.

I realize I love winter for that very reason. It is a forcing “in” of people and things. And, in a good way. My husband and I have been spending less and less time together, because he has been extremely busy between his job and outside consulting work. I long for the cold nights when he does come home, because there is no where for us to go but right next to each other. Although we love to venture out from time to time when the snow is so thick all you see it white, for now I am happy sitting on the couch by the shine of Christmas lights. It makes me think that it is not just holidays that bring out the “closeness” in people, or the feelings of gratefulness and thanks. It is nature itself: a winter season with more intent than imagined. With the intent to encourage our busy lives and frantic schedules to slow down, curl up and get warm, right next to the people we love most.