As the cold comes and the snow falls there are those that shiver and moan as if seeing themselves heading out to the gulag in some distant even more frozen archipelago. It is as if it’s Russian time, with winter travelers racked with toil and drudgery fighting their way to spring while the potatoes run low and the vodka is cut . They may seek to hibernate, to hold tight against some household fire thinking it will all end one day, and if they are still alive in the coming spring, it is only God’s work that has carried them through.
The sun passes low and in its effort never gains much height. It is a cool blue light even on the sunlit days having to pass through the winter atmosphere filled with drifting ice crystals. The warmth that is there just cannot make it this far to our northern outposts but gets stopped to the south holding us hostage up here. On other days the oppressive clouds, while not the dynamic billows of summer, cover the land producing a sameness, not a blue sameness of the sunny days but more a pall over all things. Each hour of the day seems the same in tone, it is like a weight held over all things, a low light almost not strong enough to light a room.
This dreary time can be a burden and a collar of sorts holding back ambition much like a heavy load pulling on the reigns of a straining draft animal. Some shrouded human desperados seem sapped of energy wanting to slip away from the darkness maybe to find comfort in the touch of a toddy as if it was artificial sunlight that was flowing back to their being.
Hanging on the door is our old fur coat made to keep the winter traveler of many years ago warm and protected in the coldest of weather. It weighs some twenty pounds and coupled with snowshoes, the long shoes, the snow and cold was conquered when there were no plows, just the roughed-out trail of horse-drawn sleighs. But even then obviously the winter cold did not prevent the locals from setting the scene for Currier and Ives. They did not huddle frightened in home nor did they head south, they did what one has to do in this new season. They embraced the day, face to the breeze, afoot and light hearted.
So as I sit sunken in my leather sofa within inches of the old stove, I should shed not a tear for the loss of summer or the glorious fall, for winter is here. It is but another season filled with joy if I can just get off my dead aging posterior and embrace the beauty, this wondrous part of frozen Wisconsin.
Yes, it snowed and it is now winter. The many colors of white are now seen reflected under shadowed trees and shrubs, even the houses cast a faint hint of their hues on the snow. It is subtle, but living with a painter has left me knowing these things of color. These colors will be a start.
Not burdened by the tonnage of the old long fur coat but sleek in my Gortex Alaskan jacket, it is time to step out to look for the morning tracks. Before doing just that, I remembered that last night we heard an Owl in the oak trees to the south, a lone owl making a series of three hoots, the first a bit ornamented. I remembered thinking maybe if lucky it was a Horned Owl or better a Great Snowy.
Then I stepped out boldly, there in the backyard was a cat’s track heading toward the bird feeder. He was pursing the our local flock of birds. Again, my mind pondered back to the Owl and a memory of Great Horned Owls eating cats, eating cats that were too engrossed in hunting birds that the feline lost track of its own enemies. All was fair game and the winter was on. Nature has a way of squaring things up I thought as I remembered the horribly hot summer and the chatter of global warming. Owls might be a symbol of sorts, maybe a symbol of mother nature and could we be a common, on the loose house cat too intent on our own consumption? Wow, Winter even makes my brain work!
Remarkable what winter can be like, so revealing. Across the way the soft snow had lighted itself on the tall grasses making shadow patterns in the surrounding snow. Beauty is everywhere. The trees caught a light breeze and the flowery snow dropped in a dazzling shower, some settling on my now red face. I caught a movement in the hedge row and saw a squirrel that in the summer I would not have seen. This is no gulag. This is winter in Wisconsin and it is just starting. While the stove is warm and inviting the out-of-doors is a dream land.
Now if we could just get a real blizzard, one that would bring the friends around, the one that would force us out into the night to survey the wrath, one that would let us live for a brief moment sampling what it was like for Dr. Shivago, one to let us know the cold so that when the summer comes around we will know the warmth.
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