Living Cold

January here in New England usually delivers the coldest stretch.  This week is true to form.  Tuesday evening, snow arrived while the temps were frigid, Vermont cold, I call it.  I spent four years at school there—think, wet hair clinking after a walk across campus (stupid, I know), moisture prickling as what’s inside your nose freezes, the squeak of boots trekking across frozen earth.  During this storm, flakes feathered down so dry they sparkled under the outside lights.  I am not a skier, but watching that stuff settle into air-pocket layers, I knew what it would feel like to push off a mountain a foot deep into it, to tuck into the spray of powder, the sting of ice frosting my cheek. 

Like much of the country, we are holding in an arctic pattern, but when we brave the outdoors, everything is etched at the edges with a razor, as clear as chandelier pendants scrubbed with ammonia.  Buffed to flawless shine.   In pre-dawn treks to the bottom of the driveway, the air we draw in goes down like distilled ice.  Most mornings, cars traveling the two-line highway a quarter-mile away whisper in the distance, but in this weather the thrum approaches us, moves inside.  Down the road, the wind has scoured our frozen pond. It offers up unblemished sky.  

We tend to hunker in this time of year.  Snuggle under down comforters, move close to the fire. Outside fingertips freeze, eyes water, cheeks burn.  But if we bundle up enough to become a part of it, the cold shatters the dull smog of winter.  It forces us to yawn and stretch, while all that is bright and clear invites us to take part in life.