TheBanyanTree: NORTHERN LIGHTS- This aint winter

[NancyIee at aol.com]

It's really black out, and rain is imminent. I dash out to bring in the dogs 
and shut the car windows, just as the drizzle blows in on a cold sea air. My 
neighbor across the lane is hurrying to put up the last of his Christmas 
lights, not finishing. He drags his step ladder back into the garage and the last 
long tail of lights swings in the wet breeze.

They say this is winter.

This aint winter.

I'm not shoveling the last eight inches from my walk and driveway and the 
kids aren't sliding down the front hill on cardboard sleds. The shriveled apples 
hanging in the orchard aren't wearing snow caps, the chickadees don't cluster 
around the bird feeder, and the horss aren't standing head to tail in the 
pasture, steaming.

A cold drizzle isn't winter. Yet, the damp air chills to the bone and I wear 
my heavy coat when I go out to walk the dog. Not my down jacket. That was for 
a different life in the different place. The down jacket and snowmobile suit 
and ski-masked wool cap and arctic boots are stored someplace else. Or, maybe 
someone else wears them to build a snow fort or push the car out of the drifts.

Winter here is whipping palm trees and driving rain and people who drive 
without lights no matter how dark the skies. It's parents driving children to 
school because . .well, you can't have them walking that block on such a nasty 
day, can you? Was a time when students walked on the lone tracks down the middle 
of the road because the snow drifted waist high on the walks, and people would 
stop and give a lift and no one feared kidnapping.

I have to go the the store. The lady who was going to ride along backed out. 
Too nasty a day to go out, she said.  I grab my umbrella and crunch it into 
the back of the car. The windows steam up, but it's not snow.  The grocery store 
is nearly deserted. The check out clerk said she thought she was coming down 
the the flu, the nasty weather bringing it on, she said.

The streets going home are empty of traffic. It's a cold rain and no one 
wants to venture out. My neighbor is standing huddled under a mackintosh, waiting 
for his dog to pee.  Humbug, he says to me. I hate this winter weather.

This ain't winter, I reply.

NancyLee