I know. Everyone thinks I officially hate summer and must therefore love winter. I am trying to like summer, though, at least the hot weather. I mean, this is central Maryland, and it’s not like the climate is getting colder around here or more predictable. But summer certainly has its charms.
I have always liked hot drinks and sweaters and cold weather. Recently, I have given up my sweater pretentiousness in favor of the flannel that I think I am genetically pre-disposed to prefer. Must be something with the buttons or chest pocket or something. But, as I get older, my hands crank and flake, and I find that my feet get cold on the old wooden floors in my apartment. To say nothing of the extra cycling gear you have to strap on and tug around in the winter.
I can’t figure out which I prefer, but I think that’s Okay. It’s not like I get to pick a season and for Baltimore to be that way forever. I suppose what Thoreau wrote in “A Winter Walk” is true:
The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foot-hold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter;—as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.
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