Cold

It's cold here, in Minnesota.  Today, actually, was warmer than yesterday (high of 1°F then, low of  -15°F; today it got as officially warm as 7°F above zero.  For perspective, the averages for these dates are 22°F and 5°F).  I woke up this morning with an echoing head and aching sinuses, dried out like a tattered lace handkerchief caught on a dead rose bush, blowing in a stiff wind.  I read once that Minnesota in January gets drier than the Sahara Desert, but I can't figure out the stats to show that's actually true.

CoG refers on his blog to the grey, dark painting of The Hunters in the Snow (Winter) by Pieter Brueghels the Elder (1565).  We have a print of this at the house in Portland, a reminder, in the cement skyed damp greenness of western Oregon, of real winter.  I love the painting, although it's chilly to look at. But the skaters are so clearly having fun in the distance, and the mountains look majestic, and that lovely bird, soaring in the grey winter sky-!

However, Minnesota winter brings a sky blue sky and vivid sun; the cold is colder.  During the day my hollow head has filled like a nasty sponge, and tonight I am sneezing and sniffling and clearly have developed the other meaning of the word cold.

Shall we instead concentrate on another Brueghel painting, the Harvesters?  Golden warmth, work and play, at the opposite season of the year.