Why I Love Winter

I remember saying in 1999 I would never be a winter person. I couldn’t imagine willingly spending my free time or vacations in the cold or dark when the alternative was a golf course in the sunshine. It was absurd on it’s face and my snow-sport loving Canadian co-workers were all just a teeny tiny bit crazy. What makes me laugh is how certain I was at the time.

Twenty one years later and I wait for the dark, cold time of the year like many wait for the coming of spring. I wait for the people to go home and the little ducks to return. I wait for the time when I can be out an hour before sunrise, watching Venus rise in the star-filled sky. I wait to hear the owls hooting up and down the lake as they conclude their courtships and establish their territories.

I wait for those mornings, below freezing, when I can sit on the rocks and feel the Earth holding me without sinking into the mud. When the soft steam rises from the water and I can sit all bundled up in my wool and down in such a way that the grebes seem not to see me at all as they dive for fish in front of me. I wait for the kiss of frost on the leaves and rocks and soon the ice glimmering in the first light of day like the finest jewels left there just for me to enjoy.

I wait for this feeling - the feeling of belonging. At least for a moment on the stillest mornings as the pinks of winter fill the sky, I belong. I am one of the many creatures watching the sun rise, listening as the little birds begin foraging for seeds in the grass behind me, in their large winter flocks. I can feel the song of life within me even as I watch it through my camera lens.

It is not nostalgia - I didn’t spend my childhood sitting by a lake. This feeling of belonging is much deeper, a communion with every tree, rock and creature. A communion with all that has been, all that is and all that will be.

This is the time I wait for. This is what calls to me in the darkness with the sweetness of fine chocolate. This is the time when I am - home.