The Winter of My (Dis)content

The rain pounds on the roof and the wind blows as the “front”makes it’s way through.

There is no powdery white snow here.  Or any snow for that matter.  Winter typically presents itself via coolish temperatures and the occasional freeze.  Sometimes there is rain and cold mud. Brown-ish grass mixes with green and the camellias bloom in abundance.

One January day the children are wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and the very next they are clad in layers, because they just “ain’t” quite sure how to handle 45 degrees.  They run out the door after breakfast to decide if they should cover their appendages or leave them free to feel the air. Some mornings call for the seat warmers in the van, but most do not.  When the sun shines the mud cakes, marked with tire tracks and boot prints and those days are literally golden.  It’s like a gift from the heavens and best seen through the mostly leaf-less trees.

Winter in the south is sort of like a weather roller coaster.  The temperature can drop 30 degrees within hours.  Your lips can change from supple to dry in no time.  Anyone can quickly go from just wanting to wear those boots (Hello! It’s “winter”) to actually needing to. And hot cocoa can sound like the best idea or the most ridiculous.

 

This winter everything seems amplified for me.  My own coolness or warmth. My comfort or discomfort.  My love of the rain, to noticing it adding to my despair.  This winter is like no other I have ever spent. I suppose every season of this year will be that way, in some regard.

Thankfully, spring is next and that brings blooming and hope.  It means new beginnings and re-birth. I assume it’s the season that people decided to settle here because it is the most pretty and pleasant. Little green buds and trees full of lime green.  Sunshine with more warmth and lasting longer.

For now I will try to enjoy this winter while it lasts.  I will bask in its changes and movements.  It’s blue skies and grey.  I will comfort myself in sweaters when the chill arrives and break out my t-shirts when the the warm days surprise us.

And I will drink hot cocoa whenever the heck I feel like it.

 

 

So, who wants to come hang out with me? Winter is mostly lovely here… 

 

this post inspired by MamaKat’s writers workshop.