January 31, 2008

Winter and My Discontent

It is my favourite sort of winter day, and this is saying a great deal, as it is well known that I am not a fan of winter. It is too cold, too damp, too windy (I especially hate the wind. Walking from Lettuce Knit the other night I could feel the wind push the cold in through the seams of my coat. The wind makes you a thousand times colder. I swear it.) too grey, and too sunless. After a couple of months of this I can feel it pulling the joy right out of me. I'm not depressed, I'm just surrounded by stuff I don't like. I miss my garden. I miss my bike. I miss walks that aren't physically painful. I miss stopping on the street to chat with my neighbours... I miss shopping for fruit and vegetables in the village and buying fresh baguettes that aren't %^&*ing frozen when I get home. (That happened the other day. I bought a warm and lovely baguette...walked home and the thing was bread-sicle when I got here.) I hate the way your hair freezes if you go out too soon after washing it. I hate the way that snow is always melting on the floor by the front door. I hate worrying about the furnace. I hate chapped lips (and faces, and hands and legs.) and it totally pisses me off in my entirety that the little tub of Carmex I had in my coat pocket froze and now it's weird and grainy. I really loathe the way that I get cold in October and don't feel warm again until April. (When we were all walking and freezing the other night, Denny was the only one who was warm. She says the answer is alpaca. I'm going to get right on that.) I am essentially an optimist and a happy person though, so I work hard at staying chipper in the winter. Days like this help. (As does offering a daily offering of thanks to the universe that forces in my past never conspired to have me living in Edmonton or Yellowknife. I would die.)

Today there is a storm. The wind is fierce, the cold is trying to come in through any crack it can find in the house., but the mighty octopus furnace is fending it off. The snow is getting blown around so hard that it is sticking in the cracks of buildings and making them white. It's terrible driving, worse walking, schools are closing, and much of the city has stayed home if they can.

Outkwind0102

I was smart. Yesterday when I heard it was coming, I did all my out of the house chores. I went to the store, I took care of the green bin and recycling. I did everything I could think of so there is absolutely no reason at all why I would have to go outside. None, and that makes today one of my favourite sorts of winter days. The outside is terrible, and I am inside. Me, coffee, yarn, knitting.

Snowdayknitcof0102

I am delighting myself. It can bluster all it wants to, and for today I have myself a wee victory over winter. (Now would not be a good time to point out that there are two months to go. ) Today I can sit and knit (assuming I get my work done) and I can make little lists of things I like about winter, just to get me over the hump.

- Soup. (Today is barley, leek & potato.)
- That heating up the house with baking is a good thing.
- Watching knitters get dressed to go out in the snow.
- How much it makes me like the summer.
- Shovelling.
- Storms that give you a day off.
- That it is dark enough to light candles before supper.
- The way that you feel like finishing your knitting is urgent.

I'm sure you have your own list. Feel free to share, I could use it. Today for sure I will finish the body of the Vintage socks, and that only leaves the leaf-o-rama to be done.

Almost2D0102

There's an "integrated i-cord bind off" that attaches a bunch of them, and at the risk of sounding even dorkier than usual... I'm extremely excited. I'll take pictures for you. The minute my work is done today I'm for my warm chair, a shawl round my shoulders, pot of tea on the table, this quote in my mind.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

-Hal Borland

(By the way? 945 ft.)
(By the way again? Go read Sara's entry for today.)

Posted by Stephanie at January 31, 2008 4:43 PM