Driving to the institute for my MITSFS hours today, I was struck by how cold and dead everything looks with a coating of rain-refrozen snow on everything. You'd think it would look dead enough in uncovered late-fall mode, with dead brown leaves and bare trees, but the ice covers most of the smaller signs of life or life recently departed, leaving only dead looking trees and mounds of featureless white.
I now understand why, in some cultures, white is the color of death.
Of course, that white will be ugly mottled grey/brown in a few days, because I live in the city, and of course everything will spring back to life in a few months, but the actual winter will have to start and end first. And it's going to be cold, and long, and cold, and depressing, and cold, and lonely, and cold, and did I mention cold?
I don't hate all winter weather. Snowstorms are really nice, except for the shovelling part. And it's not going to stay that cold just yet, it's even supposed to get into the mid-40s for the next couple of days. But it might not get above 30 during February. And the anticipation is the worst part.
