Winter Rhapsody

Winter is my favourite of the seasons by a significant margin. It feels the most substantial of the year’s phases. Summer is hot, and I dislike the heat, finding that once you are hot, it is hard to become unhot; autumn and spring are half-measures between the two extremes without much distinct value of their own. When winter comes, it brings the cold with it, and the cold is an excuse for finding warmth. When one is cold, they can continue to acquire hot water bottles and layer on blankets or jackets until they are content.

When most people relay their love for winter, they speak of the holiday season: flurries of snow falling down from the sky and blanketing everything in pristine white; they speak of the time around Christmas with family and doing activities like skiing or snowboarding; they speak of snowmen and snow angels and of cancelled school days from their childhood.

I live in the Southern Hemisphere. Christmas isn’t a winter occasion – it usually takes place on a 40°C summer day. Being in Australia – specifically the western side – means it doesn’t snow during winter. It does, however, rain and storm.

The ideal day is waking up to a day of grey. Visibility shouldn’t be beyond a few meters thanks to thick layers of fog. Rain should be coming down periodically in downpours. I should see water bringing out different colours in the world around. Wood taking on a shade several palettes darker and asphalt reflecting the red brake lights of cars. I should see this all distorted, as my gaze into the outside world is warped by lashings of rain and the streaks of the droplets they leave.

The darkness of a rainy day is unlike the darkness of dawn or twilight. The sky is not punctuated by the sun’s usual transitional pinks or yellows but is instead an oppressive grey. Rain reduces visibility, and the distance fades into obscurity – silhouettes of trees and structure against a dull sky.

Trees sway and swing under the wind’s influence with threat of dropping limbs or uprooting. They rarely go through with their threats, but they certainly menace and deform far more than seems reasonable.

The shingled roof changes palette in splotches – like blotches of a brush in a work by Monet. I love watching as the rain begins and hits the roof shingles. At first it is just a few drops, and they hit and linger for a moment before being absorbed; then a few more come down, and they too are absorbed, but not completely before more hits. Before long, the rain has saturated the surface and begins to stream. It gains complexion, then a watery gloss. The world presented like ungraded photography.

While I may love watching shingled roofs change colour, I’d give it up in an instant for a tin roof under downpour. They don’t dampen but instead reverberate, with each droplet being heard with the force of a thousand. It is bliss to hear the assault on windows and roof as it comes down in sheets of white.

Rain hits different surfaces. I hear the white noise of it peppering the ground. Many drips, each slightly out of sync. I hear the grip of tires as they pull up water trying to find traction and the slosh of puddles as someone ventures through one. The howl of rushing wind and the whistles of it finding paths through confined spaces. I hear as rain turbulently tumbles through the downpipe, plummeting without precision. The reverberation of water cascading down pipes and the slow drips of the liquid left behind.

The sun comes out and seems to cut through the clouds – the rain still pattering down – sudden warmth upon the cold landscape. But before too long, the clouds return to shield it from view. The illumination of the warm bright sun feels magical – like witnessing a rainbow. My brain tells me that rain and shine are separate concepts, not something that happens together. For a moment the birds survey what’s different.

As the clouds depart, they seem to slide across the sky. Like a screen door along its rail. Static in form but changing in location. Sometimes I catch myself in wonder contemplating how something with such vast size, even viewed from a distance, can move so swiftly.

During downpours birds can occasionally be heard. Rarely with friend. During the warm, clear days, a warble or squawk sets off a reaction from all the area’s avian life. During the rain, a call is met with no such response. Most take refuge in trees, and looking up to the branches, they can be seen. Coats puffed; heads retracted as far within as possible within their feathered form.

My ideal placement during such a day, where the clouds cast over the Earth open, is inside with a good book and a cup of tea raised to my lips while some ethereal tune plays and the sky thunders on. Ideally, my head is – like the birds – retracted as deep within a mass of warmth as possible. Perhaps I get distracted and watch as small patches of blue sky are obscured from view. It can be difficult to tell where the soft, blurred sides of the clouds come to contact the sky.

Inside is bright and dry; outside is dark and wet. A wall and window form the distinction of what may as well be different worlds. The light inside is the direct, warm glow of artificial globes; outside is a diffused, even coldness of both light and temperature. Further separation – further distinction of worlds.

The sky is already dark as night settles in, with oppressive cloud cover making sure of that. The clouds, which thunder and pillow across the sky, water the plants and assault the roof. The sky flashes for a moment, and thunder joins the symphony. I climb into the warmth of my bed, entirely separate from all that exists around me. It may as well be a shuttle to another world, because it relieves me of my consciousness and drifts me into a restful sleep.