Winter trees waving naked, without leaves.
Airing their branches out before new growth will adorn them next spring. Winter is the pause when creative forces are conspiring to renew us.
I realized on this visit how small Portland, ME is, and for all its good and bad it is a hometown to me. Maybe not my permanent hometown ever again, but a magical, special place that called to me, nurtured and held me for three years. I'll always visit and feel love in that city.
I was pleasantly surprised at how I withstood the cold after living in sunny southern California for the past three winters. When prepared with proper clothes, hats, mittens and tights under your pants, it's still cold but wonderfully brisk to the lungs - rejuvenating. There was no snow in Portland, just cold temperatures below 20 degrees F. It was almost 18 degrees one day with a windchill that made it feel like 11 degrees. Snow awaited me in Northern Maine and in Vermont.
I miss the dark mystery of winter.
It's such an adventure to get bundled up and explore the snowy woods. It's not so hard when everyone around you is living through this weather together. I've experienced comradeship and a sense that there is no need to complain or hate the weather because after its over you get to see another colorful spring unfold. We survive and the effects of spring thaw are waiting in renewed beauty for us. It's worth it.
There's nothing comparable to the friends you make while living, surviving, in cold harsh climates. You bond because you have to, in a way that I have not experienced in easy warm weather. You help others shovel out their cars, help stranded motorists out of snowbanks; you have people's backs.
I really believe that winters reach into a deeper part of the psyche, soul, and heart. The friends you make it through the cold with are the ones you keep in your life for many years. Like a deep relationship, you have to reach into the shadows before it can mean anything. Winter has often been the shadow for me.
