Winter Weather Woes

I see green outside—green grass and green leaves on the bushes. The sun is shining, and there are birds perched on the long, bare tree branches. I don’t trust my eyes. I keep wondering if any minute now the sky will turn black with rainclouds that will bottom out in a drenching downpour. That happened two days ago. I’ve lived in North Alabama for about five years now. February and March are the bipolar months. You never know what you’re going to meet with day to day. One minute I’m contemplating opening up the windows because it’s so nice outside, and in fifteen minutes there’s a lake at my front door. In a couple of hours the temperature has dropped twenty degrees and is still falling rapidly. The next day Realm’s car is covered in ice. This place is crazy!

I feel so sorry for the folks up north, cooped up for days by heavy snowfall. At least, to some degree, they know what they’re in for each year, though. And they’re prepared!

Yeah, I’m that Florida girl with no concept of winter. Last week we had a few inches of snow. It seemed to come out of nowhere. The schools were closed. A friend asked me whether Alabama even had a snowplow for roads. Snowplow? What’s that? Okay, I’m not that bad. I lived in Kentucky for a handful of years. The winters there were…awful. The salt trucks came out after a snow, making the gray sludge beside the roads my constant memory of winter in Kentucky. That and the salt eating the underside of my car. Yick.

Why is winter so…so sad? In literature winter often represents death and loneliness. I’m not lonely, and I’m not dead. I do feel low when the cold sets in, though. It’s worse when I see the spring attempting its entrance; I become all hopeful that the winter days have passed. Then another bucket of snow falls on our heads, like March is saying, “Ha! Gotcha!” How do you handle the winter?