A Winter’s Gallery

We’re in for one more muggy, uncomfortable day in the 90s today. So I’m going to think of all the snow and ice and Winter that I normally hate so much instead. Let’s hope it works.

Winter dies on Opening Day

This has been the worst winter I can remember. We’ve had snow, cold, ice, more snow,  more cold, and still even more snow. Some days it felt like it was never going to go away. Spring officially started a few days ago, but today was the first day that it really felt like spring. And

Spring is coming

This morning I walked out to a part of Lake Michigan that normally is under water. The hard freeze of this winter created many frozen glaciers, and they have finally begun to recede. The lake is now reclaiming the space it occupies in the warmer months, but winter will still linger for a little bit.

Winter’s last stand

It snowed–again–two nights ago, and the results were visually striking. But the melting has commenced, and this winter is in its final days. I shan’t miss it when it’s gone, either. This was a rough one,  but referring to it in the past tense feels really good.

More tea and poetry

Sometimes a little scrap of paper is all you need to get creative. Instead of taking the Lipton tea bag out of its envelope, I leave it attached and see what comes to mind. We’re waiting for the snow to arrive as I type this out, 12 hours after I wrote this little throwaway haiku.

Tea and poetry

I wrote this on the back of a teabag wrapper this morning. Spring can’t get here soon enough for me.

Keeping Winter at bay

Today is the birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who is best known for The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, but who also wrote the following couplet: The love of learning, the sequestered nooks And all the sweet serenity of books There’s another cold day outside, here in Chicago. Keeping warm is essential this winter, more

Light at the end of Winter’s tunnel

This winter has been unlike any that I’ve seen before. The cold seems colder, the snow seems deeper, and the winds seem to whip everything up with more gusto than usual. A conversation with a baseball-loving colleague earlier this week produced what I’m going to call the Wilker Rule. It’s an inverse relationship between the

A teabag wrapper haiku

I’ve been drinking tea lately, as I wean myself off of a long-term coffee habit. And when I drink tea at work, I undo the tea envelope so as to leave the paper intact. And today, I took the white space and the baseball on my coffee-turned-tea mug as a form of inspiration. I really

And the snow comes back

Yesterday was the first snowfall of the year, or at least for this winter. Last winter’s snow pattern was very strange, with a dusting on Christmas day, and then none until early February. We obviously won’t be getting that again this year. I also saw some snow in the Smoky Mountains on Spring break, so

Spring at last

This may have been the strangest winter I’ve ever experienced. There was literally no snow at all–with the exception of the Christmas day miracle–from the end of Fall up until early February. Then the groundhog predicted an early spring, and it all went wrong. We had snow, ice, rain, and varying degrees of mixtures between

Nothing to complain about

When you’re in a climate-controlled cabin in the Smoky Mountains, and this is the view out of the window, there’s not too much to complain about. Even if it is supposed to be Spring Break. Winter came late this year, is all. And next week we’ll have baseball. Can’t beat that.

Desire with fire

I borrowed the title for this from a Carlos Santana tweet. The full text was “Vision Aspiration Desire with Fire Courage.” It sounds like a recipe for getting things that you want. As I see it, the meaning of “desire with fire” is to want something so badly that obstacles won’t stop you. And that’s

The depths of Winter

It snowed in many places last night. It seems as if Winter is determined to assert itself one last time (I hope) before Spring rolls around. And pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training next week. Nothing chases Winter away quite like that. This too shall pass, and the sooner, the better.

Waiting for Spring while I still can

I complain about things sometimes. We all do. But going to cemetery can help to bring some perspective to life’s troubles. I’ve written about Beyond the Vines before, a Cubs-themed burial spot in a cemetery in Chicago. Spring training will never come again for the people whose names are on this wall, which makes the

Waiting on a sunny day

There are some days where everything looks great. The sun is shining, the road is unobstructed, and everything seems to stretch itself out before you. But yesterday wasn’t one of those days. The weather sucked, there were potholes and ice everywhere, and every step seemed treacherous. And yet there was a journey that had to be made.  Along the way, I

The depths of winter

Today there’s snow on the ground, and the air is cold. It could be worse (at least the cold winds aren’t blowing),  but it’s far from what I want. Winter is a tolerable season, but nothing more than that to me. Football fans love this time of year. Conference championships today, and the Super Bowl

A white Christmas, but a few weeks too late.

May it melt away in a day or two.