Like Jonah and the Whale, I'm out in the Winter - but only so it doesn't eat me

Over at Quirky Outtakes, Todd Tyrtle's "How to rebuild a relationship?" inspired the following...

I don't like winter, but long ago I did. A valley on the Thames River was my year-round play ground. The dog and I knew that short stretch of the valley well; and knew it again after the spring floods reshaped it year after year. 'Rumple' chased field mice he would never catch into snowbanks as high as a western precipice of the valley. I cleared smooth,  idyllic skating ponds barely fed by tiny remnant streams created by melt water's raging torrents.

But now, winter's just a matter of survival.

I'm lucky, I get to chose where I spend it. I don't mean warmer latitudes - I mean where in Toronto I get to spend it. I don't have to go to an office to work, I work from home - and as such I have chosen to live in a building that has a big bay window facing East. It is a place I have chosen in order that I can do just one thing - help myself get through another winter's visit. It's been two years here - so far so good.

I must rise with the sun every morning and make sure I get every minute of the couple of hours of direct sunlight it allows. Together I and the plants I am husbanding, cling to the progress of the celestial cycle that will bring more and more light after the darkness of the winter solstice, December 21.

That and cycling the bike all winter, the daily walks.

It's like visiting a person everyday that you know just isn't one of your friends anymore, but you're pretty sure is someone who's trying to kill you.

What's the line? "Keep your friends close; keep you enemies closer." I'm organizing a snowball fight as soon as the first snow falls. Like Jonah and the Whale - I'm right in there.

Is this all there is of winter? Well no, life goes on, I improve myself day to day - but as far as this sick relationship goes, that would appear to be it.


My comment on Todds page.

Picture from Wikipedia page, "Winter Solstice".



mh