Winter has Graced Us

"It's snowing, it's snowing!" Kira exclaimed gleefully many times yesterday. Winter arrived with gusto, delivering a knee-deep blanket of snow to our region and the cold temperatures required to keep it here for the next 5 months or so. Her words echoed in my memory bringing me back to a time and place when I'm sure I expressed the same glee in the presence of a mother who was equally as ambivalent, as I was yesterday, about the arrival of winter.

It didn't help that winter's arrival with such effusion meant we had to cancel our plans to visit with an old and dear friend we hadn't seen in 18 years. We visited by phone instead. Her early flight out of Ottawa the next morning meant it was too risky to try to bring her to our home in the snowy hills and deliver her back to Ottawa later that evening. The odds of her being stranded at our house were just too great.

Like my mother before me, I have chosen for much of my adult life to largely dislike winter. Yet, as a child, I anticipated winter with every fibre of my being, longing for that first opportunity to grab my toboggan and race down what I believed to be the best tobogganing hill in the whole world. As I got a little older, I tingled with excitement at the thought of getting out on my snowmobile. Winter also meant that Christmas was coming, and, at least in Canada, Christmas just would not be Christmas without snow on the ground. Bing Crosby was so right.

My daughter, then, rather put me to shame for being so ill-tempered about the whole thing. It got me thinking about trying to adopt a different attitude. It is rather beautiful out there. The first snow paints a grey and brown late autumn world into a pure, pristine white wonderland. It takes a world that is vague and monotone and recreates that world as one of sharp, clear contrasts. Sometimes it is refreshing to see the world in black and white.

Last winter I had little opportunity to actually enjoy those things one can only enjoy in winter, such as skiing and skating. Living in close proximity to the Ottawa, skating on the Rideau Canal is a particular and unique pleasure, and last year, for the first time since living in or near Ottawa, I did not have an opportunity to skate. One reason for this is that I was away when conditions were at their peak. What turned out to be my last visit with my mother took place at that time. Shortly after that poignant visit, we returned to New Brunswick to attend her funeral.

Winter was not to be enjoyed last year.

But, maybe it can be enjoyed this year. Maybe I can make an extra effort to have my skis and skates prepared early enough to enjoy as much of what winter has to offer as possible. Maybe I can look to Kira to help me re-discover that sense of wonder and magic that comes so naturally to children and youth. I would welcome that!