Winter in the South

To the unaccustomed eye, everything may look the same… 

 

At a first glance things may have the same resonance, the same feel to it, the same color or colorless on the wintry landscape...   
 

Here too, our mornings wake up wrapped in chilly blankets of frosty dew, and our temperatures are hitting the 25’s and 26’s… yet, somehow… 

 ...things are not really the same.  It is a different kind of cold around here—a chill, a cold, a wintry weather all the same, but devoid of the bitterness and austereness of the north.  And how marvelous and utterly wonderful and brilliant the sun shines in the south—always leaving a trail of glitter behind and above and all around... always enfolding my soul in blissful delightfulness...

It puts a new kind of song in my tongue this wintery warmth… and I harbor in my soul blessings that I count in clear blue skies and this astonishing sun of the south; which lets me stand still in this frosty nippiness; eyes closed feeling this miracle in my skin of not being struck by cold.  I can hardly believe this is real—this marvelous warmth of a winter southern sun that knows only how to wrap my soul in pleasantness so sweet. 

How marvelous everything looks to me too… this world devoid of the familiar iciness and winds that cut through bones.  I am at awe—dumbfounded at how I don’t see the need for thicker layers and still feel comfortable being outside on a 25 degree morning.  What is it?

I remember how when living in the great white north back at the house in the roses I used to wait for winter solstice with great anticipation—the wheel of time turning more slowly, night coming earlier each day and that sense of quiet anticipation whispering in my ear.  Those days just before Christmas were too short, too dark and ominous for my sunlight thirsty soul.  And I waited for the shortest day of the year for no other reason than just to see it ended… and witness the miracle of time taking place after solstice—of days progressively getting longer; daylight extending wings like butterflies...

I’m so thankful I don’t have to do that anymore.  I cannot say I miss my loved ones any less; I still do miss them terribly and I don’t think I will ever stop missing them.  But I’d never go back to that cold again if I can have this marvelous sun of the south warming my old bones.  

 

Do you like winter?  I mean the really really cold snowy kind of winters? I love winter images… images like these ones here enchant me... they posses such special kind of magic. They make me dream.  If I watch them too much the scenes would become real, they’d come to life and I will be transported right into them and into their white landscapes.   

 See what I mean?  It’s surreal.  It’s magical.  
 But that just happens only in the mystical sense.   

In real life this kind of winter does not seem that romantic to me.  In fact, I don’t do well in winter when the great sun turns his face away and my little world goes down into a white vale of grief.  That’s how I used to see winter… or think of it back then while living at the house in the roses.

My husband showed me a picture on the internet this morning of our old place up north covered up in snow and I trembled… literally.  All the memories rushing down on me as I was being transported  there; to that white-bluish light of the wintery landscape I knew so well.  But then, I looked outside our window and was brought back to reality by this amazing sun of the south warming up the earth outside.  There are times when I still think I’m dreaming.  Dreaming those dreams I used to dream of a white little cottage wrapped in sunshine and no more bitter cold to stand.  How fortunate I am and how my life has taken this unexpected turn towards the sun—the road that brought us south.  It’s almost unbelievable.