This morning both of my outdoor thermometers — one on the south side of our house, the other on the north, register 10 degrees below zero. Cold, even for a woman who claims to love being outdoors no matter the temperature. But the fact is that now, in retirement, I can postpone my usual walk until conditions moderate. Having breakfast in front of the fire, reading the newspaper then, instead of in the evening as I usually do, would be sensible.
It would also be prudent to let the dog out before I indulge in this change of plan. Putting on my warmest coat, hood up, hands in pockets, I use my elbow to open the door for Jasper as I head toward the sidewalk. But Jasper has stopped on the porch. “No, he says. I will wait too.” He emphasizes his point by sitting down on the icy walkway as he looks back at the door. “Later,” is his message to me.
It is with pleasure that we both soon settle in front of the fire, and I carry on with breakfast and the newspaper. Time passes. Glancing outside as I read, I see that the wind has picked up: Snow swirls in eddies over the top of the drifts. Clouds dim the feeble sunlight of the early morning hours. The news too is enervating: Omicron continues, schools cancel in-person classes, Russia threatens the Ukraine. What else, I ask. Later for that too, I conclude as I put down the paper.
But I stop myself. By now, isn’t winter nearly half-way over? Can’t I look past a morning like this, toward spring?
Of course I’m finding some of those same cold mornings this month too, but they’re less bitter. The wind is not as face-burning as the January gusts were. Generally, my husband and I are on our way out for a walk at the normal time, and with at least some sense of enthusiasm. As this second month of the year advances, warmer days are interspersed more frequently. Our treks on the woodland trails compressed by snowshoed walkers are challenging but energizing. The texture of the snow is different too: it has moisture in it, reflecting the warmer temperatures we’re seeing more often, and it’s less pristinely white, though not yet March-gray either.
If outside is different with another month having passed, inside is too. Returning home, I’m greeted with colorful flowers sitting on two of our wide window ledges. In the living room, which faces directly south, are blooming amaryllises, some brilliant orange, others a cream and coral blend. They are so large that they bend their stems as they lean toward the brilliant sun. On a window sill in the kitchen is a pot of yellow tulips that have just opened — surely a promise of things to come in the garden.
I will dig through the snow to retrieve my two large planters stored under the porch and go to the hardware store where the racks of seeds will already be on display. I’ll buy a packet of spinach and a packet of mixed greens, as I do every year.
I’ll plant them in the pots, make room on a window ledge for them both, and look forward to the joy of the first sprouts emerging.
The hours of daylight will exceed those of darkness. Mornings at seven will be lighter and lighter. Evening sunsets — often a brilliant red in the western sky — will happen later and later.
And the unusual windblown stretch of brown grass outside my window will eventually, magically but predictably, widen and turn green.
As the hints of spring become more certain, I will put back on the shelf the book I have just finished, Mary Oliver’s Winter Hours. But not before I’ve written down a final passage — one that imparts both wisdom and consolation.
“Now winter, the winter I am writing about, begins to ease. And what, if anything, has been determined, selected, nailed down? This is the lesson of age — events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different….
Weary and sleepy, winter … recedes to the north, its body thinning and melting, like a bundle of old riddles left, one more year, unanswered.”
Spring will come, and then summer, fall, and winter again. This is how life is.