"February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer."
--Shirley Jackson

It's so cold. The air, the sun, even the sight of snow is sending shivers up my spine.

It took two trips to walk the dog this morning. The cold was so bitter that before we'd even been outside a few minutes he couldn't stand to walk, lifting his paws up tenderly. I brought him inside and let us both melt. My skin felt like needles all over. I'd been dressed warm too. I was in a ski jacket good to twenty below. My arms were frozen. The wind chill was thirty below. Maybe more where we are. We get terrible winds. When I took him out the second time the wind knocked the breath from my chest. I gasped. A word of advice, never gasp when it's that cold. I felt my throat freeze. Not figuratively, literally. I felt the crystals. I instantly covered my mouth and exhaled, letting the hot breath melt my throat and mouth. That's not something I'm wishing to repeat.

I watched the snow while I waited for Biscuit. It looked like sand. It's too cold for it to even stick to the ground. I watched it swirl and rise, blowing into drifts. I was careful not to turn into the wind, I kept my back turned to it. I've felt my eyelashes and nose get frost before, I wasn't wanting that. It's painful and a little frightening.

It's hard to believe anything will be alive come spring. It's hard to believe anything can survive this cruel freezing. We aren't even to the worst yet. The worst will come in the next two days. The coldest weather I will have ever experienced will be here. Sixty to seventy below wind chill. I don't know if I can take that. It's even worse when you think it's ninety to a hundred degrees below freezing. Makes it feel terribly cold doesn't it?

This place isn't for me. I knew that after moving here. I'm not meant for this weather, I'm not meant for this social setting, I'm not meant for these people, this state, this weather. I will never be truly happy here. I need flowers and rain and trees and mountains. I need rivers and springs and lakes and ocean. I need birds and fiery sunsets and sunrises. I need to be in a place where I wake up feeling alive. I don't feel that here. I never have. This place disappoints me. It leaves me feeling empty. Especially in winter. These awful winters. They crawl under my skin and make me itch. I feel impatient, anxious, tense. I can't sleep properly, I spend my days wishing to be outside in the sun, to swim, to feel the sun beating down on me.

Of all the things I am, a winter person isn't one of them. And I've had that confirmed to me yet again this winter. I can't wait to be able to go outside and breathe in something other than cold. There's no other explanation for the smell. It's pure cold.

Just a few more months... Just a few more months until this is over...

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."
--Albert Camus