Winter Musings

By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo
My husband gave me a beautiful book for Christmas, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: a Traveler’s Journal of Staying Put, by Vivian Swift, a former assistant Vice President at Christie’s auction house. Swift traveled around the world for twenty years before settling down on the Long Island Sound and wrote this book to celebrate the simple joys and discoveries that a year of “staying put” has to offer.
This month-by-month account of much time spent at home begins in January and mentions such delights as seeing the sun rise and set every day, drawing trees (since this is the best time of year to see what a tree really looks like) and taking the time to mend something with your hands.
It got me thinking about reasons to embrace the seemingly bleak winter months. It’s easy to grumble your way through winter, but it’s a big part of life in New England, so why not embrace it?
There are some great pluses to the month of January. The delicious dead calm after the chaos of the holidays, crisp, cold air with the faint smell of a wood burning stove, the conifers in all their glory, no insects, NFL playoffs, guilt free napping, red wine never tastes better, and my favorite, being able to see the animal tracks in the snow. Bear tracks, coyote tracks, and, a recent sad discovery at our house – coyote meets bunny.
After such a warm embrace of January, I was disappointed to find that Swift didn’t share the same enthusiasm for February. She summed up the second month of the year with this statement, “Take the worst day you had in January. Repeat 28 times. That’s February.”
Way to ruin a moment. I love February. It’s one of my favorite months of the year. Some great things happen in February. Public schools have a vacation week. Valentine’s Day, while corny, is a great excuse to eat chocolate and go out to a nice restaurant. Black History month makes for some good television programming. Oscar nominations provide a list of wonderful movies to see. And every four years, you get the winter Olympics. Not to mention the snow. Is anything more beautiful than a February snowstorm?
But the best part of February is that it’s a month of hope. It’s the climax of winter, so you know the hard part is over. Groundhog Day, while another corny February holiday, starts the month off planting that seed of hope. Pitchers and catchers report in Major League Baseball, Dairy Queen opens. The light gets softer, a much rosier hue than the stark, white light of January, and it stays light out until 6 p.m. As the days become markedly longer, the air smells sweeter, and thoughts of spring creep in. Not so bad.
Now March, here’s where Swift and I agree. She states in her section on the third month of the year, “Poor March. It is the homeliest month of the year. Most of it is mud, every imaginable form of mud. And what isn’t mud in March is ugly late-season snow falling onto the ground in filthy muddy heaps that look like piles of dirty laundry.” But embrace it, I will try.