Why do I love winter? Well, to state the obvious, it's the skiing.
I won't belabor the point, in deference to those who do not participate, but will simply say that sliding around on snow by whatever means—skis, snowboards, sleds, toboggans, a pair of slippery-soled shoes—is one of life's greatest pleasures. That winter makes snow (or, at least, should make snow) and snow makes skiing is simple but irrefutable proof that winter is the best season.
With that light work done, I should save the time and energy it will take to extend the argument and head to the slopes. But my friend and colleague, Chris Collins, has expended tremendous energy venting his antipathy toward winter—an odd malady in a guy who was born and raised in Greenfield, a scion of one of the Valley's most famous hockey families. Lest readers be subjected exclusively to his whining about having to dust a little snow off his car, I feel obliged to offer a counterpoint.
Thing is, I haven't always been winter's biggest fan.
As a child, I loved winter, as I suspect most children do. As a grade-schooler in Hadley, I wandered for many happy hours through the snow-blanketed fields and woods. (As a father, I rejoice at seeing my 6-year-old daughter playing for hours in the snow, far from the techno-diversions of modern life.) I loved snow and ice and all the various things one can do with a bit of frozen water. I loved especially sitting by the radio on "snow days," praying to hear my school on the list of cancellations. I loved the spontaneity of snow days, tied as they are to forces beyond humankind's control, pretty little crises created by Mother Nature.
Alas, my affection for winter went south for about a decade immediately after college. I still skied a little, which was fun, but after four years at college in Lewiston, Maine—it is helpful to love winter if you choose a college in Maine—I landed in Boston. As a passionate long-distance runner, I soon discovered what all Boston-area runners know: in winter, the wind is always in your face. Hard by the Atlantic, Boston doesn't have the cold temperatures found in New England's interior, but the icy blasts coming off the harbor mutate amid the tall buildings and narrow roads, becoming savage and unpredictable. It's like running in a mosh pit.
To be honest, I objected less to the actual weather conditions than I did to the way in which most of my training partners reacted to cold and snow. I loved running with other people, chatting along as the miles passed. But come winter, I often found my companions to be grim and surly, brooding and silent save for the sputtering of invective as they sidestepped puddles of slush. The mood was contagious and by mid-January, I too longed for spring.
With my return to the Pioneer Valley in the mid-90s, my love affair with winter began anew, this time with fresh insight into the season's seduction. In Boston, I realized, the ocean was a source of tremendous spiritual fulfillment for me. From the shore, looking out to sea, I was filled with a sense of awe. For someone who loved being outside, the ocean provided distinct practical advantages, moderating the cold of winter and the heat of summer, holding the mosquitoes at bay, opening up wide vistas in which small, craggy, tree-covered New England appeared suddenly vast. Most of all, the ocean offered water to play on and in.
With the ocean as the focal point of my outdoor adventures, I favored summer over the other seasons.
In the Pioneer Valley, summer is an ornery season. The woods are choked with bugs. Heat and humidity sit in the river valleys for weeks on end. The trees and underbrush turn lush, closing in the views on all but the few denuded mountaintops. And though water is all around us, in rivers and lakes, in the air, it is not an obvious and pervasive force so much as an occasional pocket of liquid relief.
In winter, encased in snow and ice, the Valley is suddenly submerged in water, albeit the frozen kind. Traveling in the woods, traversing the hills, surveying distances at a glance becomes noticeably easier than at other times of the year. The thought of camping in the woods in winter inspires fear and loathing in some people, but for many backpackers, it is the easiest kind of camping: no bugs, no fire hazards, plenty of water, in the form of snow, with which to boil up the evening's repast. The snow is easy to level under the tent, soft to sleep on, insulating. I've been colder in late fall and early spring without snow on the ground than I've ever been in the dead of winter, the perimeter of my tent banked with snow.
Most of all, winter is a quiet time when, far from the madding crowd, I feel solitude without loneliness. Alone in the woods, I become transfixed by the few intermittent sounds that interrupt the silence: the sharp report of hardwoods crackling in the frigid air, the crunch of powdery snow under my boots, the lonely howl of wind in the treetops. It is, in many ways, like being adrift in the ocean, dwarfed by the enormity and indifference of the natural world around me.
What happens outdoors in the winter, for me, makes going inside all the more pleasant. Collins and others who fail to see the majesty of winter will bemoan the need to shovel snow, never thinking of all the yard work they don't have to do in winter. At any other time of year, I'd feel guilty flopping from the dinner table to the couch when there's grass to be cut, a garden to be weeded or harvested, leaves to be raked. In winter, when the sun is down, it's time to relax in front of the fire without a hint of guilt or anxiety. Life seems simpler in winter, more cut and dried. Shorter days make the daylight hours more intense, the darkness more enveloping. Within all that starkness, little pleasures seem bigger: food tastes better, candles burn brighter, sleep is deeper, more peaceful.
No doubt winter has its hardships. It's a time of year in which New England can seem downright inhospitable to the delicate human creatures who populate the region. It's the very harshness of winter, however, that ultimately defines the region and its people. To be a New Englander and merely tolerate winter is to live with one eye out for something better, at least less demanding. The trick to being a New Englander is not figuring out how to endure winter; it's learning to love it.
