Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Monotony of the senses

End of January. Is it fair to complain about the winter yet? I try not to complain, because I'm normally such an overwhelmingly positive person. Overwhelmingly so. But I'm really tired of winter.

I am most tired of the monotony of the senses that is winter. Every few days recently, a new snowstorm has blown in to bury all the color, and turn the world into blacks and whites. No oranges or blues on which to rest your weary eyes. Just black and white. And when we get a thaw, there are shades of brown, to be buried again in blacks and whites with the next storm.

And the eyes aren't the only sensory organ that misses summer. Snow has no smell. When you step outside for a breath of fresh air in winter, you don't smell mud or cut grass or crunching leaves. If you are lucky, you don't smell anything. Unlucky, you smell car exhaust, or worse, snowplow exhaust. And that breath of fresh air rushes into your nose and freezes out your sinuses. Ouch.

In winter, there is no wind in your hair or sun on your arm, or even the tickle of a bug crawling up your leg. You feel almost nothing on your skin, because every inch of skin is covered and double covered in layers for warmth and layers for waterproofing and layers to wear in the dry heated buildings. And the bugs are hibernating or frozen.

And there's no sound of snowfall. If anything, snow muffles sound. And the song birds are gone. And the crickets are dead. The sounds of winter are the sounds of traffic driving through slush, or a snowplow scraping the road.

End of January. I can't expect color before April, or even the smell of mud before March. I hate having four seasons.

2 comments:

Mark and Emily said...

I love winter. I wish we had "winter" here. We just get rain, rain, rain, and gray, gray, gray. I like the rain, but I do miss the snow.

Laura Dee said...

This reminds me of the ways my body would react to the cold there, always seemingly worse than anyone else's. My shoulders would scrunch up really tight, I would get goose bumps, and my lips would turn purple and stay purple until at least a few hours in a warm place. I do have one really beautiful memory of winter on campus. One late night, during a very light snow fall, I found myself under one of the lampposts and held out my deep black leather gloves. They caught each snowflake for a few seconds, and I could see each one so clearly--such a fascinating experience.