Seasonal Weather & A Poem

Winter has returned, meek like a lamb. Today the temperatures were down to the 40's with strong breezes but sunny too. The heat has cycled on and off all day- for the first time in ages. Tonight the temperature is already in the low 30's at 8:30. Entirely appropriate for December, but signifigantly cooler than a couple of nights ago when Husband went for a run in shorts and a tshirt. I waited for him on the porch, not dressed much more warmly than he was. I am a very cold person in the winter just to give you an idea of how warm it was. We had doors open and fans on all night. Not tonight I don't think.

Weather appropriate to the New England of my childhood somehow matches my inner compass. It matches my inner sense of what winter weather 'ought' to be, somehow. If that makes any sense. As an adult, I have spent a winters in regions where warm or hot weather is the norm. In those places I always felt out of place, off kilter. As though my inner compass was wrong. The season simply didn't match what my memories told me it ought to be. Actually, in hot climates, none of the seasonal weather matched my inner sense of 'what should be.'

A Christmas Carol
by Christina Rossetti


In The bleak mid-winter
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.