I’m not sure if it’s this winter, or just winter in general, but it no longer bothers me. It’s different. It’s cold, but is it bitter? Bitterly cold, that’s what people say. There are times when this is an apt description of the temperature, but when it’s 19 degrees and the sun is shining, should we casually throw around the adjective the way we do? Is that really a bitterly cold temperature? I suppose if the wind is blowing then it might be, but what if it’s calm? What if the lake is flat with just a few bits of the thinnest ice, and the sun is hanging low in the southern sky and the geese are swimming and the eagles are circling? Is that so bitter? I say it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be. Next thing you know it’s going to be spring and then we’ll have to deal with the mud and the misery and we’ll wish for this clean calm of winter, or maybe we won’t. Either way, it’s winter now and we shouldn’t be so ornery about it.
