A Mid-Winter Night's Dream

I love summer. I love the free giddiness of walking barefoot. Driving barefoot. Dancing barefoot. I love taking a deep breath and feeling nothing but air rushing into my lungs and joy escaping out. I love the first day I find myself on a boat in the middle of the lake, my head thrown back, my eyes closed until the moment I open them, and seeing nothing but crystal sky, knowing in my whole being that this, this moment is why I live here all year. This moment is why I struggle through all those cold, dark months. Maybe this moment is why I live.

This is not that moment.

It is the deep of winter and this year, thanks to massive amounts of supplemental vitamin D and the acceptance (at age 36) that a hat and a warm head are worth more then decent hair, I have been okay. Okay, despite the fact the first snow day came before Halloween and that the naked ground has been rarely seen since then. Okay, although it has been zero or below most mornings since Christmas. I have begun to measure the temperature, not in degrees, but by how close we early morning parents pull our hats to our eyes. By how long we look up at each other with a quick smile as we walk our kids to school. Less then two seconds - I know it is below zero. When it hit 20 one morning last week, entire conversations happened on street corners. Teeth emerged from smiles brought by happiness - not just polite upturned lips. Some even dared to go without a hat.

On Jan. 19, I admit to grumbling steadily throughout the morning as I climbed through snow banks to reach Cate's side of the car. I grumbled as snow filled my boots and I struggled to pull her from her seat. I grumbled as my coffee grew cold on the roof of the car as I tried to slide between the snow bank and passenger side to put her back in. I grumbled as I discovered my pant legs covered with mud and my coat covered with dry dirt and salt as I slid back again. But the next day was Jan. 20, and grumbling seemed the stuff of the past.

My morning drives with Alex have been the coldest. But somehow, I haven't minded those. The sky of those cold mornings is so blue. The singular warmth of the sun seems almost visible - as if it falls to earth in one concise ray and that if you could find that ray, you would feel heat. Without it, the air is a frozen vacuum, if such a thing can exist. But I have tried to focus on that singular ray. The bitterest nights are also the starriest. I have found a separate peace with this cold.

But, I am starting to come undone. Not by the cold. Not by the snow. Just by the clothes. The boots. The coats. The snowpants. The mittens. The hats. The gloves. The scarves. The long underwear. The socks. Multiply that by three - sometimes four. That is what it takes to get out the door nearly everytime - whether it be for a whole afternoon of sledding or a five minute trip to the post office. And then we come home. Multiply them all by three or four again and add wet, melting snow.

I have made a solemn promise to never again complain about getting ready for the beach. How hard is it, really, to pack a couple of snacks, rub sunscreen on nearly naked children and toss them in the car? A car that I haven't needed to warm or scrape or brush or anything?

And so I am writing this post. It is my attempt to beat down the negativity that is starting to rise. I cannot let it swell. It is only January 31. I cannot yet be defeated. I have lived here long enough to know that winter will linger for two more months, and as T.S. Eliot said, "April is the cruelest month."

Today I upped my vitamin D. Tomorrow I will take the kids skating. Maybe, just for fun, I will rub a little sunscreen on their noses.

I think the smell of coconut might do me some good.