Of winter blue…
Ice and shadow and moonlit nights wash the winter world in blue dowsed water color. Rain and water vapor muddle the light and lingering water drops and puddles reflect back the cast of blue. Snow glints back the bright or grey blue of the sky and edges up in crosshatched shades of blue. The cold and dark and frozen northern places lay bare and bathed in blue.
The blue winter places are cool and soothing. They are not the stark Lovecraftian black and white Antarctica. Nor the rigid glaring white mountain peaks of the Himalayas or Alps. The blue winter places are not warm, but they are soft, mysterious, alive with dancing changes of light.
Blue winter nights create the backdrop, the contrast, for the orange and red and yellow glow of lights and fire. The blue stands against the warmth of patchwork lit windows of shops and restaurants and homes. The pop and glow of street lights along the azure roadways lift spirits and suggest of the quaint comforts of community.
At night the star light and moon light strike towns and landscapes in sapphire. Where fire and lamp light shine forth a kind of reverse shadow is cast where the edges of things glow red in places where the light touches their otherwise blue figures and forms.
I walk the blue winter world hooded and inhaling the smell of rain. I listen to the sound of slapping and sloshing puddles as my feet splash across them. I feel happy feeling a little sad. I like the way the rain water streaks down the windows, and I’m glad I am alone in the quiet though I wish I could be alone in the quiet with someone else.
The blue winter world is cold. I walk by myself. When others appear on the sidewalk I cross to the other side of the street. I walk alone. Sometimes I think of the spring when the magnolia trees are fragrant and full of white and pink blooms. I see them now leafless in winter blue holding fuzzy pods at their tips that will become the blooms of spring. I think of the spring, but I do not want it. Not yet. Leave me alone a little longer in the blue.
I remember my friend. She used to walk here with me. I remember another time, so long ago, when I was somewhere else that was blue in the winter. My friend is not here now. And I wonder, was there ever really another time and another blue winter? I cannot touch them, these past things. I cannot bring them here. Yet they exist in my mind and follow me while I walk alone in the winter blue.
A hope leaps in my heart. A dream, a wish, a longing thumps in my chest. The blue world shines at me and flashes all in vivid color, realer and more perfect than ever before, but somehow still in extraordinary blue. I stop and stare in awe before it all turns back to ordinary blue.
Returning home I leave the blue at the threshold of the building lights that push it away unwelcomed. I turn and look from the yellow barrier back out at the shifts and shades and tiers of blue mellowing cool calmness from street to sky and see myself in the winter blue.
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