It doesn’t snow all that often here in Vancouver. (Although it can – I know that. I don’t want to invoke the curse of the internet.) Because it doesn’t snow all that often, our grass stays green year-round. But sometimes, in the winter, the weather turns cold and bright. When you wake up the morning and look out the window you see a world that is not white, exactly – but it’s not green, either. It’s covered in frost, like finely spun lace, blanketing the grass and the leaves. It makes the ground crunch under your feet, and kills the parsley that’s still trying to hang on in my garden. As I walk my daughter to school in the morning, my breath hanging in a cloud in front of my face, I can’t help but be struck by its stark beauty.

If it’s cold enough, the frost sticks around all day. Or maybe for several days, or even more than a week. As long as the rain is at bay, and the thermometer hovers near freezing, the ice crystals hold their place. And while I’m not a fan of the cold, I find the way the light glints off of each blade of grass to be enchanting.

My children take delight in the frost. They would prefer snow, of course, but they’re pragmatic enough to take joy where they can find it. They tromp across the lawn, leaving footprints in the grass and enjoying the crunching sound. My daughter Hannah has even gone so far as to attempt frost angels. They’re not quite as good as snow angels, but they still sort of work, as her weight leaves an impression on the icy ground. She doesn’t shiver against the chill, as I do – she leaps in with both feet and makes her own fun.

Winter won’t last forever. Soon enough the frost will all melt and the ground will be soft. Little green shoots will sprout up, trusting in the promise of spring. So for now, I’m doing my best to enjoy the gifts that this season brings. It has its own striking beauty, to bring comfort in the cold, and brilliant starbursts of light to offset the long nights. I just need to take the time to pause and look around for a moment, so that I can see it.

Where do you find beauty on the cold, winter days?

The mornings are cold now, and sometimes if I’m up early enough I can spot a light frost. In response, the trees are putting on brilliant coats of yellow, orange and red, colouring the landscape in the vibrant hues that will soon give way to bare branches against the winter sky. I see the geese flying south, increasingly insistent and urgent, wings beating in unison as they honk out their messages of warning to each other. Flee, flee, for cold days are ahead.

Sometimes, as I make the morning pilgrimage up to my daughter’s school, I bundle myself in my winter coat. It keeps me cozy in the early hours before the waning sun has warmed the earth. Other mornings, though, I resist. I am not ready! It isn’t winter yet! And so I wear my light fleece coat, wrapping my arms around myself and shivering a little, but taking a stand against the vanishing warmth of summer. I am defiant, even if my defiance makes me uncomfortable.

Any Canadian can tell you that here in Vancouver we don’t have real winter. Real winter involves months of freezing temperatures and four feet of snow, packed down by heavy winter boots tromping across it for almost half the year. In Vancouver we have only the rainy season, which is colder and wetter, but not so frigid that it kills the grass or the blackberry bushes. Winter in Vancouver is green, but a different shade of green than spring or summer.

In spite of my admission that I am a lightweight, and I do not know what it is to live in a land of ice and snow, I confess that winter carries a certain sadness for me. Or maybe not a sadness, really, but a heaviness. Darkness encroaches, cold mornings bite my nose, and life retreats to its hiding places, buried deep in the soil or inside insulated burrows or holed up on the couch in front of the television. We’re all just riding out the cold days, saving our strength and trusting that spring will come, and bring the return of the light.

Photo credit: Craig Bennett on Flickr

I’m certain there’s a lesson in the waning warmth and encroaching coldness. Perhaps it’s meant to teach us that all things come to an end – and that from that ending springs a new beginning. Perhaps it’s meant to teach us that we all need times of rest and retreat. Or perhaps it’s just a trick of physics, a planet tilted on its axis in just such a way that the life living upon it must adapt to changing seasons if it is to survive. Although, even a trick of physics holds lessons – intentional or not. I have an engineering degree, after all, and I spent years studying tricks of physics.

As I peek out my window at the red leaves on my blueberry bush and the mushrooms that have popped up in my back yard, and survey the pumpkins that my children so carefully selected for their jack-o-lanterns, I see vibrancy everywhere. I also see wistfulness. Winter is coming, and we’re celebrating the last bits of warmth and growth and colour. Soon the cold days will be here, but until then, we’ll pull out our brightest colours and adorn ourselves in all the beauty we can muster. Because hope survives, even as the trees shed their leaves.