10 Weeks of Winter

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

A journal style blog exploring the pleasure and enjoyment of winter.

First Post — 10 Weeks of Winter: An Introduction

Michelle is an American born Canadian resident of the Pacific Northwest, hobby writer, book lover, and generally of the autodidact polymath smattering of knowledge, skills, and interests.

Category: Winter Mood

Posts giving or discuss winter mood and ambience.

  • Of winter pale… Winter light peels away the dark of night like one sheer black veil lifted to reveal a pale white one. Diffuse rays of pale yellow light scatter across the otherwise blue land and cityscapes and tints the underside of long charcoal and cobalt clouds pale pink and apricot in the pale blue…

  • Baroque for New Years… Yesterday I joined some friends for a Spanish Baroque classical music concert, and I found it oddly fitting for January 1st. The Baroque music period spanned roughly 1600 to 1750 in Europe. It was a time of growth and prosperity, a time when art and artists could thrive through the cosmopolitan…

  • January at last… Finally and firstly, the best month of the entire year: January. It makes me sigh with contentment. And even better, it’s followed by February, the next best month of the year. That’s two whole (or nearly) months of the ripest, sweetest time I’ll get out of the entire year. Why are these…

  • Long winter dark… On the longest night I meet the winter dark. The sun sets with a suddenness shuttering the afternoon into evening. The remains of the day are left to be done in darkness. My eyes grow heavy, but it’s early still. Lights flash on creating pockets of day-like spaces. I’m awake again. Hours…

  • A cozy haunting… Spectral wavering yellow and orange peaks of light rise out of the blue burning edges of flame. Beneath the flame red hot embers glow and pulse burning redder and then blackening to char and ash. Fire breathes. Flames engulf the burnable fuel melting paper and thin wood away and growing the fire…

  • The sound of winter… Imagine looking out the window into the black freezing night. A streetlamp stands outside illuminating a cone of the road and sidewalks. A little speck of white briefly crosses the yellow light. Then another. Then two followed by five little white fluffs. What do you hear? Certainly quiet and silence are…

  • Winter fragrance… On a winter’s afternoon traveling home from a day filled with activity the still cold air hangs with a perfume of watery cleanliness and freshness: snow is coming. Once home a warm draft of mulling spices and firewood entices and beguiles the senses into deep respiration – a sigh of contentedness. Someone opens…

  • Better in the dark… Mid-December appears in a bejeweled cloak of darkness. Neighborhoods where gowns of glowing red, green, blue, and soft white light. Christmas trees look lordly upon the sidewalks, and downtown buildings and avenues blaze with rows lighted roofs, eaves, and trees. Even the crane operators working construction all over the booming downtown…

  • Heavenly phenomena… The most spectacular light show on Earth is a cold climate phenomenon: the Aurora Borealis. In Canada it’s usually referred to as the Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis occurs when particles become energized from the sun and collide with gaseous particles in the atmosphere. Wavy and swirling patterns of neon greens and purples…

  • Trains in winter… There’s something captivating about trains in winter. Picture this, the snow-streaked blue and white ridgeline of a mountain pass borders the pale blue sky. In the river valley a conifer forest grows right up to the rocky vertical slopes of the mountains. The river flows like blue crystal between snow mounded banks.…