I love the winter. I love its overcast skies. I love the bite of its crisp air pinching my exposed cheeks like a doting aunt. I love red noses, Long Johns, and flannel shirts. I love sundown at 3:45 PM. Unlike so many who yearn for Winter Solstice and the lengthening of light, I always grieve the coming of brighter days. I don’t know why this is so; If it’s because I lived too long in the hot and humid south where summers were always miserable. Or if it’s because my Scandinavian genes are more adapted to long winters. Maybe it’s the rebel in me who doesn’t want to be like everyone else right down to the chill in my bones. All I know is the increased sense of contentment I feel in Winter, in the gift of its quiet aloneness, in the freedom from so much business, from the bombardment of a gazillion photons exploding all around me, pounding my skin in quantum warfare. Gray skies, frigid air, shorts days, that’s the season for me. I only wish it were so for most of us, this love of winter. Maybe global warming wouldn’t be a thing. Maybe, instead of being addicted to the golden treasures of perpetual harvest, we’d be glad to give the Earth a break, to let her rest and rejuvenate, while we enjoy the down time, this wonderful season of Sabbath we are commanded to keep.