Thoughts Mid-Winter

Have you got the cold? Everyone has it, just about. I do. I have now plowed through eight boxes of Kleenex, and endless rolls of toilet paper. Aren’t winters great? Even my dog is not sure.

As we humans wrestle colds, he awakes each morning hopeful but soon lodges another complaint—with me. He asks to go out, meets me at the door, and then finds winter again.

My dog’s thinking mirrors Robert Heinlein’s famous cat, in “Door into Summer.”  The cat, named Pete, would prowl the house all winter, asking to be let out each door, going from one to the next, seeking a door that led into summer, which obviously was moved while he slept.

That’s my dog’s view, I think. Since I can make dog food appear from scentless cans and bags, cause light and treats to come and go, and stir cold logs to flame in the fireplace, I must have brought winter. He would prefer I ditch winter, and just open the door into summer, or at least into spring.

In fairness, I have had “the talk” with him and explained that I am not responsible for all this cold, or the snow that gets into his paws, or the lack of his summertime pals and no warm lake to swim in.

Still, he looks at me like I am trying to put one over. He lays his woes at my feet. He goes out, looks around, does what he must, wanders to the frozen lake, with no ducks, and gazes across the ice.

On days like this one, reaching for another tissue, I almost mutter “Summer, I miss you” – but then I note how beautiful that lake really is, snow settled everywhere, feeders aflutter with birds.

Like my dog, I let my eyes feast on the horizon, bright with light from a southern sun, recall how many sweltering days my mind wants a day like this one. Despite the cold, I like this season.

And we know, don’t we, seasons come and go. Even at this moment of extreme cold, the winter solstice (our shortest day) is well behind us; coming already is spring and the birds it will bring.

Besides, better to love each day as it comes, think of things that way, and take what we get, than pine for what is not yet. Looking out on winter’s snow, at least for me, brings back quiet walks, snowball fights and fort building, hill sledding, ice fishing, skiing, and snowshoes after a blizzard.

The famous first on Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, once observed, “Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow.” That seems the right attitude, even having never summited much of anything.

Artists see in winter what those busy blowing their noses and wishing for summer miss – a kind of goodness. Maine’s Andrew Wyeth: “I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape.” New England’s Robert Frost: “You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”

So, I want to remind my dog of this, but then, while he likes walks, he never got a good snowball fight, built a fort, slid with intent, ice fished, skied, or snowshoed. He had the dog’s handicap.

The funny part is, I think he does like winter, in a way. He loves to curl before the fireplace, bound about in a storm, and watch squirrels endlessly, somehow in sympathy with the birds. Some days, he digs with a sudden frenzy for something beneath the snow and tries to make sense of it all.

Maybe the best way to think of deep winter, when forced to, is with appreciation – not just as a contrast with summer or prelude to spring, not just nose-blowing and that sort of thing, but as a moment to relish the daily contrast, cold out, warm in, celebrate quiet, less distraction, no din.

Wrote Albert Camus, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Now, if I can just translate that for my dog, we will have solved the morning complaint.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).