Winter Marches On..

Winter can suck it.

 It's a time of darkness for me.

The skies are heavy with foreboding clouds, and when the sun shines it's always accompanied by bitterly cold wind. While staring out at the bleak surroundings, I often wonder why winter is the longest season. Why can't summer stretch out for 6 glorious months? Why can't we have endless months of sun kissed skin, salt water tangling our hair, and delicious heat? Instead we get cold, bare trees, a world stripped of color and life.

What is it's purpose? Seriously. Ugh.

So I have to wrap myself up and go out in search of beauty. You know, to make sure my SAD doesn't get the better of me. I fight back extra hard this year. Me and my camera struggling to make it through the lingering heartbreak during the hardest time of the year for me.

This week, Tammy from  http://www.blissandfolly.com/ has started a little something called the Inspired 5. This week's prompt is WINTER...what does it look like, feel like, taste like, sound like, smell like? To kickstart my blog again, I decided to take part.

What does winter look like? Well, here in Cape Breton, winters are usually fairly typical. Snowy and cold. When I was a little girl, we used to get so much snow we could walk straight up the drift and onto the barn in my grandparent's back yard. We had a skating rink in the back yard, where my grandfather taught me to skate. Now, it looks nothing like that. We have snow which is immediately followed by rain. It's weird. I just wish Mother Nature would be decisive. Choose one and stick with it.

Winter usually feels bonechilling. I always resent having to be in layers, especially boots. This year, it's been warmer. The icy, wintry days are few and far between. I have been able to walk the beach in sneakers and a hoodie. No gloves either. I am grateful for less bitter cold, but it makes it seem that much more bleak.

For me, winter will always taste like hot chocolate. When we were kids, we would go to Layton's hill, just a kind neighbour with rolling hills in their backyard, where we would toboggan for hours on end. We would come home with ice stuck to our hats and mittens, rosy cheeked and shivering. Mom would have big steaming mugs of delicious hot chocolate waiting for us while we curled up in front of Carol Burnett or Archie Bunker for the night.

Does winter have a sound? For me it's the sound of icicles dripping, cracking and falling to their untimely death. Or the grackles and starlings alight in the trees each morning, their winter trills ringing out in the chilled air. And also the sound of children whooping with joy as they sled down the big hill in the graveyard at the end of my street.

So many memories are triggered by the senses, so what does winter smell like for me? The smell of wood stoves burning, that crisp coldness that permeates the air, the spicy tart candles that glow in my house on cold winter nights and salt water. No matter how freezing it may be, the siren song calls me home to the beach. Inhaling the rich, briny air makes me feel alive when my spirit is hibernating deep within.

As long as I have the ocean, I can survive the darkest time of the year. It is all that gets me through. The beach heals my broken heart and mends the pieces of me that are scattered. Winter can't take that away from me.

I am so looking forward to next week's prompt...BLUE. Thank you, Tammy...for igniting enough inspiration within me to make me want to blog again.