Y va faire frette!!

Temperatures at home in Canada are freezing to an Olympic degree! Here on Daytona Beach Shores - where as usual we're feeling the repercussions - the report on the street is that temperatures have descended to the lowest they've been in the past eight years.  It is nothing to see a Floridian on S Atlantic Avenue dressed in a parka with the hood up!  For my part - the imperturbable Canadian that I am - I went bicyling again today along the same route but clothed instead in shorts with a shell on top of my Polo shirt and light cotton jersey.  As a concession to the uncommonly cool air I wore a pair of white socks to protect my precious ankles.  Certainly the wind was fresh and my hands became somewhat frigid but the whole was not so intolerable to prevent me taking my daily exercise.

This mid-winter trauma is not singular anywhere in North America. Nor is the rapid advent of buoyancy which already distinguishes this miserable time of year above the equator. Now that the obligations and family commitments of Christmas and the New Year are behind us - and the festive Twelvetide has only just ended - the view of the universe is strictly prospective. The turning of the clock to the New Year has crystallized the forward-looking aspect and brings with it the hope and promise for release from the captivity that is Winter. We spoke with friends on Hilton Head Island over Christmas and learned that they had suffered the indignity of snow which not only fell upon the Palmetto ferns and the ground but remarkably lingered there!  We have the photos from them to prove it!

I can't but imagine that there is some value in even brief hibernation.  Whether it is my nature in particular - or human nature in general - I am not certain, but my perception is that the enforced state of inactivity and daily torpor is unwittingly beneficial.  And like so many things that are good for us this particular season is only reluctantly tolerated. If nothing else it affords a mechanism to aggregate in the protected state of one's own mind.  The healing effect of such composure is obviously so salubrious that we hasten to emerge from our withdrawal to recover from the dormancy.  The cabin fever is subsiding!

The Weather Channel predicts that a week from now the temperature will climb in excess of 25℉. We're currently anticipating our annual trek down the Florida scorpion tail to Key West.  There is a reason I haven't bought any new socks lately! All will be well. The moderating climate will soften the obdurate days of January and in the process revive the sentiment of expansiveness.

I am moderately embarrassed that I haven't the tenacity to endure Winter any longer than necessary especially when its rendition here is so considerably condensed in comparison to the weeks and weeks of ice, snow and slush to which I was once accustomed in Canada. It accelerates my impatience to encounter an isolated blip of cold weather in northeast Florida.  But relief appears to be is sight.  There is no doubt in my mind that we're on the way up and out!