It is not enough for me to say or hear “I hate winter.” Every year, I face the season with the same dogged goal to appreciate Winter. Not to say it’s easy. I could do without the bone-chilling winds and the dry air, wet socks and flavorless vegetables. And clearing off the car and driving in ice and slush. But, it’s here. It always comes, and it doesn’t always go away on schedule – regardless of equinox or Easter.

The seams and tail-ends of seasons are fuzzy in Nebraska, too. We have no mountains to block or deflect an incoming storm, or draw one in. Some years see little snow and a few sunny 60° days. Other years are remembered for the treachery of two foot snow drifts and impassable roads.

I grew up longing for snow days, and did perform my share of snow dances. We’d venture to my grandmother’s house – quite literally over the river (Missouri) and through the woods (Iowa’s Loess Hills) – to skate on the frozen lake and admire the strange transformation of a muddy, woody place into a clean, white fairy land.

This winter enchantment has stayed with me into my adult years, though it has taken some work to maintain it. I enjoy the quiet, and the grace of snow-fall, the patterns of frost splayed across the window pane. I cannot emphasize it enough: Winter is rest. We’re relieved from garden duty and lawn mowing. We’re allowed more sleep with the lessening light. Colors are muted, yet more nuanced than in the greener months. It is the season of mauves and dark blues, and a hundred shades of brown.

I could wax poetic about every face of winter, but somehow I think that would be overkill. There are times when less is more, and a photograph can convey a lot more about Winter’s beauty than my words can. Enjoy this slideshow, and feel the peace!

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