“You’ve never had this much fun
with so little mercury in the thermometer” 

— This Is Cleveland.com

My hometown of Cleveland is experiencing a big winter, as is much of the US,  Storms of snow and ice keep rolling through joined by sub-zero temperatures. The Northeast just got slammed on Monday.

I love the changing of seasons and am a bit of a snow bunny; or more accurately a seal. However, the weather and temperatures tend to make navigating the surroundings more challenging. My travel has been interrupted. My car has it’s own struggles with automatic windows failing to go up or down. My dog pack much prefers snow to rain. They love to race around as long as I don’t lose one to a snow drift or leave them out in the elements too long. Like me, they have coats and booties to wear.

I don’t thrive in the gray days or the shorter days of sunshine (if it can shine through the gloom).

It is fascinating to watch Lady Lake Erie freeze.

My world shrinks a little when I start to shelter at home with the dogs. People talk about cabin fever. I am more concerned about becoming “frozen” in place.

Our home-boundedness since COVID is amplified when the outdoor world becomes uninhabitable.

• Do you experience this as well?

Maybe it is the “bear” affect. My physiology wants to hibernate and bulk up on calories. Neither is good for me or my psyche.

• Can you relate?

I wrote this on a trip to Arizona to support an Arts organization to design it’s future. The work of lightening up the stakeholders of a strong and healthy organization is energizing. Traveling has become more complicated and I more rusty. Yet, the diversion to warm temperatures,  sunshine, and meaningful work has melted me to the core.

As I fly back to frosty Cleveland, I bring someone ready to snowplow through the accumulated piles of life. I trust the process of seasons and spring. “This too shall pass” is a great attitude to navigate the final weeks of winter — regardless of what the Groundhog had to say.

• Are you experiencing a freeze?

• Or thaw?

• Or something else? 

• What universal wisdom are repeating to yourself?

I didn’t think other people had noticed my freeze time. But many know me too well and figured it out even  before I did. I am not going to blame, shame, or judge my life-pause but embrace it as one of the many cycles we loop through.

My wish is that you are well, wherever you are in whatever way you are moving.

Watching the Olympics has me embracing the joys that winter offers us all.

Leslie

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields,
that it kisses them so gently?
And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt;
and perhaps it says, ‘go to sleep, darlings,
till the summer comes again.”

— Lewis Carroll