One Good Thing/ Feeling the Freeze

In praise of cold

We are having a perfect winter. Here in the Finger Lakes district of Upstate NY, weather is a constant preoccupation, mainly because it is so often terrible. Winters can be especially unpredictable, harsh, and heartbreaking.

Promising white Christmases are washed out by howling blizzards or sleet storms.

January’s resolutions are buried under snowdrifts the size of buildings.

February is the darkest month, where days pass by in a state of day-long dusk. The sun allegedly rises at some point, supposedly sets at another point, but is completely obscured behind slate gray skies.

March and April go like this: The last snows bury the spring daffodils and Easter eggs, and we shovel the walk for the last time in early May.

(April 19, 2022)