Ice. Death. Winter.

If autumn is my favorite season, with its luminescent leaves, portly pumpkins, and abundant acorns, it is tainted by the knowledge that winter is coming next.  Try as I might, I can never quite forgive autumn for failing to transform magically into spring as soon as it realizes its days are numbered.

In autumn, the sun is crystal clear, clean, adding a bright glow to everything it touches.  In winter, the sun is grey.  Not “g-r-a-y,” the predominant American spelling, but a full-fledged Wuthering Heights-quality GREY.  “Wuthering” is a fine word for winter, by the way… go look it up.

I hate the grey sun.

In autumn, “cold” means “bracing,” imparting a vigor to the limbs and chest; the cold air tells you that you are alive.  Autumn cold makes hot chocolate taste sweeter and coffee more soothing.  In winter, “cold” means “death” — our movements become sluggish, and our skin turns pale like that of corpses.  Winter cold makes hot chocolate and coffee seem almost futile.  Autumn air brings one to the height of life; winter air brings one to the grave.

My skin feels it, my flesh feels it, my bones feel it.  It cannot be escaped.

There can be some beauty in winter, I admit.  The cold, white beauty of icicles flashing with what little sparkle a grey sun can give; the pristine blankness of new-fallen snow; the blue tint of the sky on rare occasions when the sky isn’t grey.

I might as well say that there can be some beauty in clean, white bone.  It may be true, but I still prefer the living warmth of smooth, healthy skin over the lethal chill of dead ossium.

Winter… how I hate thee.

In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter – all round was solitary. — Emily Brontë

Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. — Hans Christian Andersen

(Photo Credit and License)