Reflections: Frosting

We have had such an unusual winter for our neck of the woods and it is getting a tad depressing now. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good snowfall and I have lived through worse - I just want to get outside and dig in the dirt now.
I was looking through some photos that I have taken over the last few years, and noticed a bit of a theme in some of them. It made me think a bit about things in my life that sometimes I take for granted - like the weather and seasonal adjustments we go through.

For some reason, the transition of summer into autumn came to my mind. Harvest time, the last trip to the beach for swimming, new school clothes and school supplies all crowded into my memory bank. Those things are such a personal mark of the changing of the seasons. My favorite part of this time is the early morning weather. The subtle change from clear blue skies to a mysterious, sometimes ominous feeling brought on by misty mornings, can bring a bit of a shiver of promised adventure as you step out your door.

This sense of adventure can be heightened by the crisp cold of an early morning frost. What will you find in the mist? Will it be friend or foe? (Perhaps I have watched one too many scary movies?) For me, I am happy to note, these misty and frosty mornings energize me. I think it is a long forgotten reminder that time is running short to accomplish the outside business of surviving the oncoming winter. I am eager to complete my harvest, ready my gardens for their slumber and ready my family for the onslaught of rain, sleet, snow and the cold.

By this time of the year, I am more than ready to dispose of all the "heaviness" of winter and move forward to the clear blue skies that are sometimes still shrouded in mist and the last frosts of the previous season.

I want to venture forth and find new beginnings, while saying goodbye to the dreary days of winter. In doing this, I have found beauty in the lingering mists and the icy bite of a late frost.

The mist reminds me of the layers of quilts on my bed, covering, protecting, possibly even nourishing the earth as the quilts do my soul. The frost covers everything, giving a glistening finish to whatever it touches, even as it sometimes freezes the last life from it's victim. But there is beauty in the frost, if you look past that sombre part of winter.

Mama K taught me to look for beauty in all things and in all places, to look past what is presented enmass for the world to see. She taught me that there may be beauty in the big picture, but there is breathtaking glory when one looks deeper into that big picture and finds the unusual hidden there.