The Heart of Winter

For someone born in the very heart of summer, I am surprisingly fond of winter. It is no doubt my favourite season, and as time brings us closer to the months of frozen blue skies and cloudy breath, I find myself looking forward in anticipation. At present, it is still too warm for my liking.

Years ago, in school, a girl asked—in response to some no doubt cold-hearted thing I had said, as I quite often do, sometimes even unironically—whether it was always winter in my heart. I have no idea what exact remark of mine prompted the question, but it was presumably meant to be critical. Of course, always one for deliberately missing the point when it suits me, I remember the question because I found it unintentionally flattering.

Yes, of course it is always winter in my heart. What else would it be? The squelchy, fickle insecurity of spring and autumn? The sweltering, oppressive weight of muggy summer? People tend to romanticise summer, of course, but what is summer, other than a great blur of sticky heat, filled with the teeming of insects and the odious stench of rotting garbage?

I may have been born in summer, but I do not live there. My home resides within the crisp, clean clarity of winter. The cold months bring everything into a sharp focus. The stillness of the air allows all tiny sounds to be heard, no longer drowned out by the roar, as in summer. And what is greater than to be out for a walk, deep in some winter night, leaving the first footprints in fresh snow, as above you the cold stars are scattered all across the endless dark?

Yes, I find that there is much to love in winter, and so I keep it in my heart. Surely that is not an altogether strange sentiment? Even if it should be, let me be strange, then. I eagerly anticipate the coming of winter. It really is the most wonderful time of year.