Last weekend I had a rehearsal for a string quartet performance that I’m part of and, as we were finishing and I was folding up music stands, I realized that although it was 5:00, it was still pretty light outside.
In Vermont, most of our winter is spent in relative hibernation. Some of this is because there just isn’t as much do to with pastures covered by snow and animals tucked into their winter paddocks. Also, it begins to get dark quite early in late October and by the holiday season we are turning on lights by 3:45. This continues to the winter solstice until the light begins to return.
More light means that we can walk dogs in the late afternoon, feed sheep out of the shadows and get a few more things done before the moon arrives for its nightly spin. Normally this begins to occur at the same time that mud bubbles to the surface. Everything is stirring, beginning to awaken. Some of the frost has come up out of our dirt roads leaving them shiny and slick with deep ruts carved in wide curves as if with a sculptors knife. A driver begins to need the skills of Motocross to dodge the difficult bits.
Doing dishes on a particularly warm evening I’m surprised by a large moth fluttering against the window and, though warm, it is still winter and I understand her desire to be in near the light.
Our mailbox becomes stuffed with seed catalogs. I pull them out and sit near the wood stove perusing their brightly colored pages. The people in them are wearing shorts and baseball hats with bug nets on them while I still tug on a red neck warmer and knit hat on.
It is a complex feeling for me. On one hand, as I walk dogs and hear chickadees conversing, I’m pulled to the days stretched by light. But I enjoy hibernation, hearty soups and wool blankets. Evenings are punctuated by the call of the tea kettle. We sit near the fire and enjoy its cracks and pops. Tea is best served hot: it is just not the same over ice.
In the mornings I walk out into our kitchen and see the sun creating rainbows streaming through the prism that sits in the corner of our window. The colors streak across the floor, lighting the entire room. As the light cuts across our wood table, I can see dust that isn’t visible in the darker hours. It seems that the new February light is exposing the dust on us all. We see it now as the light returns and it reminds us to shake off.
Experience makes me carry around what feels like a secret in my pocket; people begin to break out the lighter sweaters, leaving the heavy winter coats on the hook. They talk about spring as if there is ownership rather than being a rental in the month of February. I stay hunched over, hands still in mittens and heavy socks on my feet. Last night it began to snow and winter returned from its vacation. Wind coming from the north whipped up snow tornadoes, drove the temperatures down and we lay in bed listening to the wind chimes clang together.
The following afternoon at dinner time the light still remained but all budding thoughts were buried under a white blanket of six inches of new snow. I stood in the window, seed catalog in hand, and smile on my face.