Trudging to work this morning, I was starkly reminded why this time of the year is when I question why we left Southern California: I came across the foot tracks I’d left on the road last year (two days ago). There they were—laid out on the asphalt perfectly preserved like meat in a freezer—showing even the imprint of my Yaktrax ice gripers.

Did we really come back “home” to Michigan in part to experience the seasons in their full-blown glory?  Did we forget that the seasons include winter!  Actually we didn’t.  We did want to experience winter again, but I do have to confess that when some of our friends and family turn into “snowbirds” and head to warmer climes, I do experience a bit of envy.

It’s not merely because of the coldness that I long for warmer places; it’s the lack of outdoor life and the lack of sunshine.  Our first year back from California, November set a record: the least amount of sunshine ever recorded for the month.  And I actually enjoyed it—because I had become jaded with the constant sunshine of California that often makes every day the same.  Bored with sunshine!

But that was sixteen years ago.  Now I hunger for sunshine, even the hazy sunshine we’re getting today.  And I do get SAD these winters:  Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Isn’t it handy that modern medicine has given us so many official syndromes and disorders?  Now I’m not blue or melancholy or depressed.  I have a medical condition!  But lo, the cure for the disorder that used to be a mood is still the same: Sunshine, gift of the blessed nearby star that winter in Michigan tries to keep under wraps.

So I do thank God for those brave bundles of being that remind us that there is still life outdoors: cheerful chickadees, fiery cardinals, raucous blue jays, and the little bullets—the nuthatches that zip in and zip out of our birdfeeders.

And I did have a chance to create memories for granddaughters Elle and Danika: absolutely perfect sledding right outside our back door—a ride almost a hundred yards long.  That created memories for me too, memories that come to mind every time I move today: It’s been a long time since this big bag of bones, muscles, and tendons has been hurtled down slick slopes and bounced across hitherto unknown un-level surfaces of a frozen golf green that in summer looks perfectly smooth!

See you outdoors!

Dean