Just Embrace it

You know, it feels like it’s been snowing for months. Every time I turn on the weather they say, “Get your snow shovel ready because we’re gonna get another 900 inches” I‘ve never been a very happy winter person, but this year I decided to have a different outlook. As my daughter-in-law Christina says, “Stop complaining and embrace it.” So that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

Since Covid has taken over our lives, I’ve been working from home so that means when it’s quitting time, it really is quitting time. No commute in 900 inches of snow, no scraping my windows or warming up the car. I’m already home! So since I don’t have to commute, I take my 85 pound Husky for a walk. She REALLY likes the snow!

But truth be told, I always thought it would be a blast to go to Maine in the winter. It’s a romantic idea to rent a rustic cabin, have a fire blazing in the fireplace and stand on the porch with your partner, sipping mulled wine and watching it snow. But in my world what would really happen is we would get there and get the fire started, not know how to open the flue, smoke up the cabin, open all the doors so we could breathe, realize the blizzard is blazing harder than the fire and now we’re stuck because the 4-wheel drive that we came in is under 900 inches of snow! OH and, I forgot the cork screw!

But what if it wasn’t MY world and there really was a rustic cabin and you remembered the cork screw?

Maine truly is a lovely place to go in the winter or summer. We spent about a week at Acadia National Park a few years ago. It was breathtaking. The air was so fresh and clear and the water sparkled like tiny diamonds being poured from the sun and bouncing off the Atlantic Ocean.

We did the typical tourist stuff and spent hours at Bar Harbor going in and out of the quaint little shops and in fact, Penny (the husky above) still has a stuffed lobster from a pet shop at Bar Harbor. What a wonderful place. The night we were there, the community band was playing at the band shell.

We also got up at 0 Dark Thirty and made our way up to the top of Cadillac Mountain so we could say that we got to see the sun come up before anyone else in the United States that day. Cadillac Mountain is the most eastern point in the US, so the sun wakes up first there everyday. It was so dark when we got there that morning and we’re mountain climbing at 3:30 in the morning. But our hard work paid off. We were able to get “front row” seats (on the side of a mountain) To watch the sun come up. The morning started to glimmer to life with a small little sliver of color at the edge of the world. It was like watching a sunset in reverse. It took about an hour from first light until it was daylight, but it was so worth it.

The one thing we didn’t get to do was walk across the bar at Bar Harbor - definitely on my list the next time I go.

But back to my original issue of 900 inches of snow and I don’t ski. I go outside daily and walk in the snow and leave my footprints. I can’t help but think that my foot prints could be in the sand instead of the snow, but then it wouldn’t be winter.

When we get right down to it, if we didn’t have winter then we wouldn’t appreciate summer. I know as I write this that some of you LOOOOVE winter and snow. I don’t really hate it, I would just rather not have to bundle up every time I go outside. EMBRACE IT, I say. So as I sit here and watch the beautiful fluffy snowflakes falling, coating the ground with another couple inches of snow and I think how lucky I am to have the opportunity to see another season.

(But I still can’t wait to see the crocuses sneak through the snow.)

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Until next time.

Cheers