Winter: A Lamentation of Seasons
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 2:23AM 
winery in winter, southwestern pa., december 2009 (diana+; multiple exposure)
The world has been white and grey for weeks now. I don't mind the cold. After all, I like wearing sweaters and scarves. I don't even want a purely cloudless sky, as too much sunlight sets me on edge, makes me jittery in its garish gaze. I love the look of rolling fields covered in snow blankets. Winter is not my enemy. But this winter. Oh Lord, save us from this winter. Inches and feet of snow, more in a month than in a whole normal season. Temperatures never above freezing long enough for grass or shrubbery to peek through. Fifteen-foot high mountains of dirty ice and snow taking up half a row of spots in the grocery store parking lot.
But yesterday, in an impossible moment, a bird called out the beginning of a song in the six a.m. still-dark morning. Just the four opening notes, an overture, an invocation, an invitation to spring. I was rolling over to go back to sleep, but I whistled along in my mind, raising my own silent birdsong in hope and expectation.
I ache for spring breezes and long for flowers. I scan the colorless sky for some movement in the gauzy heavens, some whisper of blue. I take considerable comfort and joy in the birds, the darting red of cardinals, the swooping blue of jays, the velvet vests-of-orange upon robins. These are the only colors in this anemic landscape. The mourning doves camouflage themselves in the branches, all puffed up and plump in serene tones of tan and grey. They look so cozy in this wonderland, and for that I respect them.
I crave clementines. I need the sweet tang of citrus. I have forsaken the comfort foods of my youth for spicier climes. I've traded pot pie and mashed potatoes for curries and salsas. In the deep heart of this winter, the white-out hour before spring's dawn, I need zest. I need heat. My appetite has become downright tropical.
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