Posts tagged with "winter"

Snowstorm

Snow surrounds a bus shelter

Snow weighs down branches

Snow taller than a trash bin

Townhouses in winter

Snow is a rel­a­tive­ly hard thing to cap­ture on film. With so much white, there’s very lit­tle con­trast or tex­ture, so noth­ing to lead the eye. You want to give a sense of being suf­fo­cat­ed by all this now, but too much of the same thing in a pic­ture becomes bor­ing. It’s bal­anc­ing the sub­ject and work­ing with avail­able light that becomes impor­tant.

I don’t think we’ve reached the record for snow­fall yet, but we’re close. I tried to walk to work, but gave up. Even trudg­ing through the snow to get these shots left me sweat­ing. It’s days like these that I’m thank­ful that I live in a con­do, because my con­do fees go towards shov­el­ing the park­ing lot. People told me they had to shov­el their dri­ve­ways a cou­ple times in one night.

Last Day Of The Year

Outside, the snow­fall is fast but light. From the blan­ket of white on the cars, one can tell how long it’s been snow­ing. Against this white is the aching orange glow of the sky, and the warm flu­o­res­cent street lamps. The blinds of the hous­es across the street are all closed and the lights are off.

City in a snow globe. Lifeless. Plastic. Shaken.

In the dark­ness of my liv­ing room, Emiliana Torrini sings to me about love in the time of sci­ence.

It should­n’t hurt me to be free
It’s what I real­ly need
To pull myself togeth­er
But if it’s so good being free
Would you mind telling me
Why I don’t know what to do with myself

It’s the last day of the year. The lit­tle clock on my screen tells me it’s six min­utes to 2 a.m. I should be in bed, but this is the only chance I have to write.

Where did the time go? I thought I would be bored, or lone­ly, dur­ing the hol­i­day stretch, only to dis­cov­er that it was­n’t long enough.

They say that the days, months, years pass faster, the old­er you get.

Maybe this means I’m get­ting old.

Winter Window

Thumbnail: A winter scene out my window

Turning over and over in the sky, length after length of white­ness unwound over the earth and shroud­ed it. The bliz­zard was alone in the world; it had no rival.

When he climbed down from the win­dow sill Yura’s first impulse was to dress, run out­side, and start doing some­thing.

—Doctor Zhivago

When one looks out­side their win­dow and sees this, this blan­ket of puri­ty, what else can one feel but seren­i­ty, con­tent­ment, and hope?

A New Winter Ritual

Snow col­lect­ed on the grass last night.

This makes me dream of week­end morn­ings in my liv­ing room, tea and a lap­top, look­ing out to a blan­ket of white. Dolly curled up on the arm­rest next to me, as she always is. No oth­er con­trast feels as cozy.

Ritual dic­tates that I watch Onegin or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind on the day of the first snow­fall, a trib­ute to win­ter scenes and warm romance.

This year, I’ll buy myself some skates. I’ll pack a snack and some water. Maybe my cam­era in case an image catch­es my fan­cy.

As the strings shud­der and the beats go on, I’ll carve a lit­tle path for myself on the canal, and burn beneath the orange sky.

And this will be my new rit­u­al.

The Winter Schedule

But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slight­ly chilled, why then, indeed in the gen­er­al con­scious­ness you feel most delight­ful­ly and unmis­tak­ably warm.

I save the win­dow-open­ing rit­u­al for Friday nights, after a long, tir­ing week, when the sweaters are all fold­ed, and the shirts all ironed. Before I go to bed, I turn off the lights, square off my desk, and turn the win­dow crank 220 degrees clock­wise. Even though the ther­mo­stat is at 23°C, it’s any­where from ‑16°C to 5°C out­side these nights.

When I wake up at 5:00 a.m., as I usu­al­ly do, my room is filled with the chilly, snow-smelling air.

I do this only once a week to appre­ci­ate it.

I do it on Fridays to enjoy it.