Bright Days of Winter

Today, Wednesday, is another grey winter day here in Nova Scotia, though there are faint bits of blue showing to the north (the way two of my corner windows face), and it is cold the way winter days can be cold here, minus eight and damp, with a light wind out of the northwest. 2010 has been predominantly grey here and very stable after the wet snow and high winds that tore through here on the 2nd, which means that we haven’t had the conditions we need for either skating on the ponds or cross country skiing through the trails.

However, Monday of this week was a bright day, the very first clear day of 2010, the first clear day, in fact, of this new decade. And it was a special morning, clear sky out at the horizon, and a winter sun that rose out of the sea. It was cold, cold enough to produce seasmoke, which was moving out the harbour with the frigid north wind pushing it, but it was warm enough in the house with a significant solar gain as the sun got higher and lit our living room.

Winter here does get some people down, understandably, and I thought of things I don’t like about winter as we drove along Oxford Street yesterday past the dirty banks of hardened snow and ice, the ridges you have to climb over whenever you park on the street downtown, scatters of salt on the whitened sidewalks, and grey ice on park trails. There can be a grim tightness about winter and the sense that you have to work all the time against its grip, and I do understand what moves our friends to seek refuge in Florida or Mexico, to find an easier time through the next couple of months. However, there are also bright days, like Monday and like yesterday.

It is those bright days that I cherish in winter, even if the leaves of the rhodendron thermometer are pointing straight down. They are days where the sun casts blue shadows in the snow, days where sheltered corners and doorways are warmed, days where you can breathe in the crisp and clean brightness of winter air. And when the clouds begin to thin a little and patches of blue start to show through, there is a lightening of the spirit, and the promise that the days are getting longer, even if the cold is stronger. It is not time yet to think of spring, but it is time to celebrate the brightness of winter with its own austere beauty, and to hope for good snow or good ice to be able to get out and really enjoy it.