That's what the winter is to me. I don't love the cold, but life doesn't stop, and I adapt to it. It's a time to spend time with family, cook food, read. Springtime is something to look forward to, but winter is hardly something that's just to be endured. It's a special time for me in the same way a rainy day is a special time. When it's sunny or warm out, there's quiet social pressure to enjoy it because IT'S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL, and sometimes it feels a little forced because for me, sunny weather does not instantly and automatically trigger unassailable bliss, I have the same good or bad days that I always do, and I secretly dread the pressure to be happy no matter what. (The funny thing is that when I don't experience that quiet pressure, I'm probably happy anyway. It's only when someone tells me that I NEED TO BE happy that something in me resists it. Funny to watch how your mind works...) 

In the winter, there's not the same pressure to enjoy the biting cold or slippery streets; I know people who do love the cold and thrive on winter sports, or they love the holidays and the traditions and goodwill that surround them. I'm talking about the special opportunity that a gloomy, cold day provides to be who you are and what you are in a whole different way than a mild fall afternoon provides. There's no pressure to be happy, so for a weirdo like me, I'm free to be happy. Or not. 

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a beautiful place year around for me, and while I've lost some of my childlike love for snow and chilly outdoor play as adult life has steered me toward seeing it all as an inconvenience, I've started to enjoy it again. The singular calm and quiet that comes with the first snow is a lot easier to notice and enjoy when you're not in the middle of the inner city. (And I'm talking about my own life - I lived in and around New York City for years; I don't deny that snow in the city's a special time, too, I'm referring to my own relationship to winter and my own life experience.) The sunsets are different, the distant Jemez Mountains are a stilling sight when they're dusted with snow, and the sight of low snow clouds over the Pecos Mountains outside my kitchen calms and nourishes me. 

The high desert isn't dead, ever, the way people who haven't experienced it might  imagine from the connotations that the word "desert" conjure. In the winter, we still have birds and coyotes and even rabbits and mice. (The prairie dogs are sleeping, though.) The cacti are dormant, but so many of the trees around here are low, scrubby pinon and juniper trees that there's still green, almost as much as there is any time of year save the brief rainy season. But the little bugs and hummingbirds are gone, and it's quiet at night. There are times when even the wind is still (try that in the spring here!), and a full moon over a fresh dusting of snow provides enough light to read by if you're willing to brave the 12 degree weather. I love it, and I'm actually learning to enjoy the winter again. We heat our home with a woodstove and with wood pellets, so I get to feel like a real provider - I cook food, I carry wood, I start fires. It's probably dumb, but I actually feel like I'm doing something for my family when I feed them or keep them warm. My wife is at least as capable as I am in all these matters, so it's not that they need me, but it makes me feel good to shovel snow or carry bags of pellets. 

Heck, I've actually even forgotten to dread the holidays this year. Could be my meditation practice is having some slow effects, maybe I'm just calmer because work's almost under control, could be that this healing place I live in has started to work on me, or maybe it's just that it's an election year and change is in the air. But I'm not trying very hard to bring the dread back...

I was a music major in college; I started out college as an English major but I didn't like the people it put me around, and I tested the water with business stuff and didn't have much better luck; I like the people OK, actually - lots of unfocused souls like myself  - but really couldn't get into the classes. (All of which probably said more about me than about the other people or the classes.) The music classes I took put me around people I did like to be around, there was no master plan or anything. My wife, Anette, was doing something similar, she'd planned on going into the travel industry and figured she'd take a year in the U.S. and study music with a teacher she'd met who had been very encouraging. Her year turned into a whole college career, and later, a marriage and family. (With me.)

We'd definitely been in the same room at the same time more than once, but we'd never really talked, maybe something in passing, but nothing that either of us remember. One class we shared was the Jazz Ensemble that met in the afternoon 3 days a week. Basically a big band. I played piano on one side of the room and she sat in the trumpet section almost as far away as could be. 

The Jazz Ensemble accepted an invitation to play at the state prison. Everyone carpooled down there and met outside, and when we went in together. At the security screening, they took everything from us that wasn't directly related to the gig, it was for our own safety and while it kept things simple, we weren't ecstatic about it. They checked shoes, inspected cases, everything, and they insisted on holding onto our coats if they were leather or long. Anette and I both had long, leather coats, and we ended up having our first conversation as a bitch-fest about having to leave our coats behind. It was probably not a terrible idea to leave them, though, and where would they be safer than behind the security desk at a state prison? The prison itself was horrible and oppressive, and from the time we all set foot in there, we counted the seconds until we could be out, but the inmates themselves were gracious and appreciative, so the precautions were thankfully theoretical. Probably better safe than sorry.

It was not the first "real" conversation we had, that came later, but the brief conversation under odd circumstances set the groundwork for future conversations when we happened to run into each other, which we did. "Hey, it's that foreign chick that I complained to at the State Pen. I guess since we've already spoken, it will be OK to speak again." It's fun to tell people we met in prison, even if it's an oversimplification.