The Watched Pot of Winter

It’s been winter for weeks now and I’m still trying to catch up to the notion that winter is a good and natural thing, a thing needed by the earth, a time for nature in my part of the world to close its eyes and rest; a time for things to take stock and catch their breath before the bustle of spring returns.

Like his mother, Jon gets a  
little flaky in the winter. 

Winter never was my favorite thing, but years ago when I was about to drive from Michigan to Colorado, my view on winter took an uptick. It was January and someone remarked that it was a shame I wasn’t making the trip in a few months when the scenery would be prettier.

“But winter has its own colors,” a friend replied, “and they’re beautiful.”

On the trip I appreciated the landscape more than I would have had my friend not made that observation. Winter’s sepia and olive tones became nearly as appealing as the purples, greens, yellows and reds due to burst from the soil come April.  

Why then has winter become so unappealing to me again? Why can’t I think my way back to that long-ago road trip when winter was cold, bleak and barren, yet beautiful nonetheless; when it was something to love despite, or even because of its harsh embrace? Why can’t I get back there again?

It’s not as if I have no good memories of winter. My son was born in the winter, umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, his first cry the bleat of a newborn lamb, raspy, plaintive, yet raging, simultaneously helpless and furious. 

That little bleat told me my son had arrived and that he planned on staying, despite the scary start, and his grandmother’s first thought at the sight of him was that he should pick up a hammer and help the other elves. He was a minikin, but he was my minikin and he was healthy.

And one of the things I laughed at the hardest in this life would never have happened had it not been for winter.

One morning my mother landed on her fanny after slipping in the snow, her coat leaving a nubby-textured imprint next to a Nike-esque swoosh from where her boot had shot out from under her. If I’d seen her fall, I’d have been upset, but walking up on the plop and swoosh, and knowing she was fine, made me weep with laughter. Mean-sounding, I know, but she was laughing, too.

Maybe I'd feel better if I just stopped fighting winter and stopped staring at the calendar as though winter were the proverbial watched pot. Maybe I need to remember my son’s first wails, picture him as he was the other day, wind-whipped and thrilled, barreling down a hill on his sled. 

Maybe I should think about moments like those and stop fighting what is as inevitable and as necessary and as natural as death. At least winter is temporary and there will always be another spring. 

There will always be another spring, right?