In the Deep Midwinter

Some winters are long. The measurement of the days extend beyond solstice to equinox. The season is marked on the calendar at "first snow" and ends with" road graded". In between these two points I walk about a quarter mile from where my car is parked in the winter to my front door. This year winter began in November.  First snow was enough to make the probability of driving out without being stuck in the drive low. Thus, exposing my son to a list of expletives I would rather he did not learn from his mother.

And the snow just kept coming...

I would not say that we have had any extreme blow outs of snow. There has yet to be a storm that has dumped more than about a foot and half of snow. It is more the frequency of snow, at least once a week we have had measurable snow, that has gummed up the morning commute or canceled the day of school. It has been just enough snow to make the walk out in the morning feel more like a trudge, a well worn path challenged to remain defined. Sorta like life, I guess.

Winter becomes a time of  hibernation. I go to work, I come home. I read. I knit. I load up the wood box. I enjoy a little James Bond in Monaco. Who doesn't dream of playing the Roulette Wheel with Sean Connery? Shaken not stirred. Do these diamonds go with these mittens? Just give me a fancy evening gown to go along with my muck boots. Just don't ask me to leave the house.

There is this persistent thought that runs through my head this time of year. Will I be able to live here when I am eighty? I am 52. I look at the life I live here as contributing to my over all health. Pulling my groceries in on a sled, breaking trail in my snow shoes, are all resistant training to prevent osteoporosis. When the divorced occurred I was grateful for the house because it was going to feed us and the mortgage was cheaper than any rent I could afford in a neighborhood with sidewalks. This is still the case.

But this is another truth of living on the little plot of land, a full moon, big and bright and silent stretches the shadows of the trees across untrodden stretches of fresh snow and it is beautiful.