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What’s to Love about Winter?

Posted on January 12, 2024 by susanrray

    You know what I love most about winter? 

            Not cold.  But I’d rather be cold than hot. 

Not heavy coats.  But I like warm scarves, especially the one that wraps around my neck twice and one of my teen-age Grands knitted and gave me for Christmas.

Not skiffs of snow.  But I love a big snow – to build a snowman, sled down a hill, and make snow cream. 

Not even basketball games. Although basketball is my favorite spectator sport (please don’t tell my soccer-playing Grands.)

            What I love most we can see only now, in the dead of winter.  Only when all the leaves fall from deciduous trees, except oaks that won’t give up their brown leaves until spring.  

What I love is best seen on a blue, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky day. 

            Twigs.  That’s what I love most about winter.  Those tiny shoots at the end of tree branches. Smaller than a number two yellow pencil.  Pliable like a wet jump rope.  Numbered like grains of sand on a beach. 

            I love those delicate, strong twigs.  There doesn’t seem to be a pattern – angles, some overlapping as if leaning on another, some independent soldiers. 

            The designs and the sheer numbers amaze me. Years ago, as teenagers, Son and Daughter rolled their eyes, put on fake smiles, and make closed-mouth, ventriloquist-like comments about Mom’s tree reports. 

Had I not insisted they look up, would they have even seen the very smallest tree branches?  Would they have appreciated that twigs keep the tree living?

            Last week as I looked from the trunk to the very top of a tall elm tree, I realized that twigs represent hope.  The future of that tree.  From twigs and the smaller branches, leaves will sprout this spring.  Tiny holes in the leaves will take in carbon dioxide which will combine with water and using the sun’s energy, make food for the tree to survive and grow.

Maybe it’s a stretch, but aren’t the simplest, sometimes almost insignificant, comments and gifts twigs for people?

            Good morning.  Have a good day. Thank you. That’s a good-looking coat.  I like your boots.  A cup of coffee. A smile.  A pack of favorite gum.  A bowl of hot soup.  An ice cream cone.  A how-are-you-doing text.  A phone call. 

            It seems the little things – the twigs – keep us going.  Give us hope. 

Sometimes I don’t see twigs.  I have to look up. 

Susan R Ray                January 2024

Filed under: Nature, Winter | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Winter Weather – What’s to Like?

Posted on January 17, 2015 by susanrray

imgresI hate winter weather. I’m not complaining, just stating a fact. I hate bitterly cold temperatures and rainy 40-degree days.

I don’t like wearing a coat, a hat, a scarf, gloves, and boots. Not only do I feel like an overstuffed teddy bear, I look like one, and putting on all that garb takes time. Everybody’s time. Last night our five Grands who live across town and their parents ate supper at our house. Our oldest Grand, who is 9, called on the phone when I was ready to put the food on the table, and he said, “Gran, we’re running a little late because it takes so long to get everybody bundled up.” Spending time bundling up and being bundled up. What’s to like?

I remind myself that middle Tennessee is where I choose to live and I don’t plan to move and life is really good here so I do my best to appreciate this season.

Now is the time to watch birds. As I write this, I’m distracted because outside my window, a Downy Woodpecker evidently found a feast in an oak tree where a limb fell off recently. She pecked at that same place for several minutes, flew away, came back, and immediately a male Downy Woodpecker took her place. Did she get full and then invite him to her table?

And I really like seeing branches and twigs on deciduous trees. Springtime’s green leaves that turn brilliant colors in the fall hide the trees’ amazing structures. From the huge trunks to the toothpick twigs – each tree is unique. Have you seen a sunrise or sunset through the outline of trees? As beautiful as the colors of winter mornings and evenings are, the silhouettes of trees create even more incredible pictures.

Then there are comfort foods, like soup. Vegetable soup, made from all the leftover tidbits that I couldn’t throw away and stored in a freezer container and labeled For Soup. Or white chili. Brunswick stew. Turkey noodle soup.  Soup and cornbread on a cold winter day – divine.

Basketball is my sport – spectator sport, that is. I follow our home and state college teams: Tennessee Tech, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. But I’m happy watching any televised college game – women’s and men’s. I’m entertained through the first week of April, when the NCAA championships are played. Sometimes I scream, “Great pass!” and then realize that players on the opposing team made the pass. I love the play of a good game.

Back to cold weather attire – there are advantages. Long sleeves hide my sagging upper arms. Turtlenecks cover that area that it’s said no matter how many facelifts I have, my neck will tell my age. My spider veins and age spots are hidden. Give me a pair of old jeans and a soft sweatshirt and I’m dressed for the day until I run to the mailbox.

By the time I find and put on my coat and scarf and gloves and hat, it’s almost dark – 4:55 p.m. I grab the mail, run inside my warm house, heat up yesterday’s soup for supper, find a good ball game on TV, and settle in for the evening.

So maybe I’ve convinced myself that I like these winter days. But I still hate feeling like an overstuffed teddy bear.

 

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