I no longer snowboard. That has made winter an altogether less appealing thing. Mostly I read, play video games, work in my woodshop, watch movies, and eat in the winter time. It isn’t so bad, and I still go on many crunchy sounding walks. It’s not so bad, I’ve come to terms with it, I live in Vermont and I don’t hate it, I’m determined not to hate it, I’m not going anywhere. 

I’ve written about wether or not I think all of the justifications for winter are Stockholm syndrome or not before, and I have an additional thought. 

There are few days better than the first really nice weekend in spring, and you can know this is true becuase you do strange things on that day, and more than doing strange things, you feel strangely about them. 

I have a deep memory of using a pick axe to clear up ice in a tee shirt. Not a fun chore, but I was just so glad to be out in the sun that I would have shoveled shit with a smile on my face.

Lo and behold now that I have shit to shovel, I spend some of this magical day doing just that, and I’m smiling while I do it. 

The magic of spring isn’t so much the immense joy you feel when it isn’t so cold and dreary out, it’s what that joy does to you.

Spring cleaning is lovely, but having a cleaner house and lighter rugs is just a side effect of the ecstasy of tidying up with a glowing heart.