Winter

So here is something I have been thinking about and wanted to share with all of you.  Since it is now the end of February I better do it soon while it is still semi-relevant.

As I drive to work in the morning, part of my journey takes me through a road that winds through a forest.  As I have  been driving through the past cold and sometimes frosty months, I can't help but notice that it is winter.  There isn't always snow, but there is cold and nature has spread winter everywhere.  From the look of the bare trees and quiet that you can only get from listening to the cold.  Like everything is sleeping.  Not dead, as it does look out side, but sleeping.  All the trees that have lost their leaves and now just have twigs and branches sticking out to wave hello in the in wind are just sleeping.  They have worked hard over the summer to be green and beautiful and as they are still lovely in the calm of winter they are sleeping, getting ready to make more green leaves in the spring.  The grass that surrounds them has either turned brown or died all together exposing the soil below.  That too is sleeping, while it once served as a lovely place to walk or have a picnic or as a place for deer and rabbits to run through and eat, has served it purpose and is preparing to give way to new green grass while the people are bundled up inside and the animals are hibernating.

As I drive across the dull brown and tan landscape dotted with patches of orange, rust and red with a few scrapes of green I still marvel at the beauty of nature.  How every few months she changes the color palate on us and this is the colors of winter.  Of sleep.  I also love how just when you are getting bored, she blows a cold snap through in the middle of the night so while you drive the next morning you can't help but notice that everything has the sparkle of frost, glistening on the grass like diamonds, even the air has a cool, fresh blue tint to it.

Now, as we are nearing the end of February, you can see nature is still sleeping, but give it a few more weeks and it will wake up!  Nature will come out of its calm winter slumber and wake us all with its own alarm of chirping birds and fragrance of flowers, grass and life.  Buds will begin to bloom and grow on trees, butterflies and bees will flutter and buzz about and birds will chirp in their new nests in the newly green trees.  A new color palate will spring to life and a new smell and feel will be in the air.

For now, it is still winter and the trees are still bare and the air is still quiet, all just waiting to bloom into life.