The forecast calls for rain tomorrow and after a stretch of cold/ice/snow/wind that seemed it might never end, I am grateful. I rolled the window down in the van today, and when I stepped outside without a jacket, just for a moment, I forgot the bitter chill from a week ago.
I’ve lived through too many Midwest (and now Mid-Atlantic) winters to hope that we’ll have a short winter, that by January we’ll have seen the worst of the weather for the season. The truth is there’s a lot of January left. And then February. Followed by March’s unpredictable patterns. Spring might feel closer when the calendar flips to a new year, but a lot can happen between now and then.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Still, days like these give me hope. And relief, however brief.
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It was almost 60 degrees two days before Christmas when my family flew out of Baltimore, headed to Chicago to spend the holidays with family. The next day, in typical Illinois winter fashion, it snowed. And the temperature dropped. Our entire visit was the coldest I can remember experiencing in almost a decade. When we returned to Pennsylvania, we were greeted with the same stretch of cold air.
If we hadn’t believed it was winter before, then we were being given evidence to believe day after day.
Looking ahead at the weather forecast offered little hope. Until just this week when we saw the high temperatures begin to gradually increase. As the snow melts and the temperatures rise, the burden of winter lifts a bit, even if we know it is temporary.
This is often the way of my heart.
Read the rest of this post at Putting on the New, where I write on the 12th of each month.