Whenever the weather predictors forecast a hard frost, Dash and I plan to head outside for our morning walk a little earlier than usual.
I like to see the patterns and muted colors before the sun converted all that silvery solid water into dripping liquid. I think the cold temperatures must add to the olfactory landscape as well because Dash seems to find plenty to explore with his nose on these mornings, too.
One of the things I love about cold weather is the feeling of crisp air entering nostrils, waking up my lungs, and putting all of my senses on high alert.
Frost brings edges and textures into sharp relief. Suddenly, we see not an amorphous dusty brown leaf pile but each individual leaf and hue, every petiole, rib, and vein.
Winter is full of paradox… colors are muted but warming up as the days grow longer, the light can be dull or bright, the air is gelid at dawn, and then sometimes balmy in the afternoon, causing everyone to start shedding layers… then rushing to pull warm clothes back on when the sun dives behind clouds.
After a spring and summer of profligate foliage and promiscuous flower production, and an autumn spent harvesting sugars produced by green leaves, the plants are spent and all that remains are their fibrous bones… beautiful, even stripped to bare essence.
Dewdrops dance as they freeze, leaving fanciful footprints or the carvings of light-footed skaters on windows, the metal carapace of an automobile, or an icy puddle.
[Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available through the Creative Commons license: Felix Meyer, Gabrielle Ludlow, Broo_am (Andy B), Marilylle Soveran, Appalachian dreamer, Kjell Eson, Alice Radford, and technicolours. © 2017 Sidewalk Zendo. Reprints welcomed with written permission from the author.]
If you’ve ever looked at a Maxfield Parrish painting and wondered if the vivid colors depicted in his skies are pure flights of imagination, then I doubt you have ever been to New Mexico.
I lived east of Albuquerque for about 10 years, on the edge of the Sandia National Forest in a small community along the scenic Turquoise Trail that winds northward to Santa Fe. When I first arrived, I would step out onto the deck each evening, drink in the kaleidoscopic sky, and marvel at my great good luck to be in this amazing landscape.
It’s a fact of life, however, that human beings are quick to habituate to their surroundings, even when the sky at end of every day looks like the psychedelic dream palette of a Fauve painter.
I was driving into the sunset with my mom, who was visiting for the holidays from St. Louis. Lost in my own thoughts, her gasp brought me back to the present with a jolt. I automatically tapped the brakes and looked frantically for whatever I was about to hit… but there was only empty asphalt ahead.
[Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available through the Creative Commons license: 
Now that the bright reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn are gone or fading, it’s nice to see a little green on the landscape. I wonder if that’s why Christmas trees were able to make the leap from German tradition to what would now be termed going viral.
and we can’t forget mistletoe!
I know, I know… mistletoe is a parasite so I probably shouldn’t make any promotional efforts, but hung above a doorway it provides a great excuse to smooch with your sweetie so I’ll let it slide.
Sidewalk Zendo 