Winter is Coming. It’s Here.

As sudden as a thunderclap winter is here. It’s cold. It’s snowed; not Buffalo-seven-feet-holy-hell snow, but enough to remind us who’s the boss this time of year.

The cold is biting, cracking the delicate skin of your hands. The cold is like a wall of ice that you pound against but cannot move. Will it ever get warm again?

A rather mild, comfortable summer lapped into a warm fall. Were we fooled into thinking

winter would never come? So when it snowed — before Thanksgiving! — it was shocking, to the say the least. It was as if nature got the same memo as retailers that want to speed up the seasons to get shoppers to buy more and earlier. So there was snow.

Mere days ago most trees wore their autumnal patina proudly, looking like gold and red bobbles atop spindly trunks. Now, the rain and wind and yes, snow, have stripped the trees of their leaves, floating them perhaps reluctantly to the ground. Now, the dried-out leaves crunch under my feet when I jog.

At least when there was snow, the bare branches were prettified with dollops of white and looked like the trees seen on forced-cheer holiday cards. Now, the snow has melted, and the shorn twigs look like the sunken cheeks of the dying elderly.

Winter is coming. It’s here.

I don’t mind the winter, I really don’t, as long as I don’t have to drive in snow and ice. That’s scary, especially since a bad accident in my teens broke off two front teeth. Otherwise, I was lucky.

Honestly, I prefer the cold of winter than the humidity summer. Ah, summer! I’ve always had a bit of a troubled, mixed-up relationship summer. I remember summers spent at the Jersey Shore, sitting at the beach, feeling the ocean breeze sway around me, gently brushing my skin; those airy wisps always seemed to tug the stress from my body and mind. How can you not be relaxed walking along the beach as the sun sets and the blue sky deepens?

And there's baseball. Need I say more? Actually, Tim McCarver said it best: You will never leave a ballpark in a worse mood than when you entered. I'm always amazed by people who say the game is too slow. But that's what we like about it! It's leisurely, unforced pace is its main attraction. You want frenetic? Watch a hockey game.

But summer always seemed too bold and brassy for me, too exhibitionist for my taste. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had a bikini body. Show off my legs? I think not. Oh, and did I mention the humidity? My body does not react well to humidity. It makes me tired and nauseous and cranky. I can’t breathe! Give me my AC!

There’s always a hurried undercurrent to summer, as if everyone is trying to stuff everything, every activity, every trip into three months. What about the other nine months?

So when the garish neon colors of summer slowly morph into the more subdued, mellow hues of autumn it’s as if nature is exhaling after a long exertion. It’s time for a change, time for cooler temperatures, a return to the calmer routine of school and work, of clothes that cover our bodies.

Fall is my favorite season. Yet there is a hint of loss, of an end, coming in the fall. Those fetching yellow and red leaves, once so green and supple, are to die even though we want them to stay gold. Nothing gold can stay…

Winter is coming. It’s here.

Whether a winter will be dodged-a-bullet bland or teeth-chattering severe depends on the caprice of the jet stream. Odd as this may sound, I'd prefer a cold, harsh, snowy winter — as the season is supposed to be. That way, when the tentative warmth finally arrives, as if by noblesse oblige, we can feel like we have earned the spring.

Meek or frigid, we know for sure there will more cold days than warm, days when we’ll spend hours digging out our sidewalks and cars, days when movement is restricted by ice and snow.

We can find comfort in that. A snowstorm can cocoon us in its white, light armor, shield us from harsh realities, as we stay (we hope) in warm homes, bundled in sweaters and fluffy robes, sipping hot cocoa (or red wine). Better not venture out, we might get hurt.

If I ruled the world (tis a pity I don’t), I would mandate that it only snow in December, so we can have the white Christmas and winters of our childhoods—real or imagined. I mean, snow in January is just so, so…existential. It has lost its meaning. It’s just a lumpy white annoyance with no holiday to make it remotely bearable. It's something to get through.

At least in February, we can start to count the days to when pitchers and catchers report, always a sure sign spring and warm temps are approaching. Even though early March may heave up some wet snowstorms, we can at least watch spring training games, where we can observe the amusing scene of major league pitchers — the most bubble-wrapped of all sporting gods — scurry to put on jackets while running the bases in frigid 86 degree weather.

Admittedly, spring can be a bit bipolar, and rather brief. It can be cold and rainy through April, and then suddenly turn hot and humid in May. Again, what's the hurry? Can't we have a normal spring instead of a quick dash into summer?

I like early March, though, only because it reminds me of late fall. Soon, the trees regain their green crowns. Summer is near and the cycle repeats itself.

I like living in a place where the change of seasons is pronounced. I would hate to live in a perpetually hot climate, like Florida.

Perhaps the reason I’m thinking about the change of seasons is because I know my life is changing, or has changed. My former 9-to-5-workday life is no longer a reality, a way of life that has drifted to the ground like dying autumn leaves.

What will replace it? What new life, fresh routine will take its place? Will it be a gentle homecoming, like the fall? The hectic newness of summer? A harsh crash like winter? A short sprint like spring? At this point, I cannot say. I don’t know.

Winter is coming. It’s here.

Gimme a Break!

Oh, hello there. Been a while since I last blogged/whined. That’s because I took some time off.

I can imagine what you are thinking: Time off! How dare she! She’s unemployed. She must spend every waking hour looking for work or working on freelance assignments!

Now before you bellow at me any more, let me explain. Last Sunday, I actually did work six hours on a freelance project. The weekend before that, however, I took my annual fall trip to

Pennsylvania to visit my sister.

It’s a trip I’ve made many times since I was in junior high. That’s when my older sister went to a college in Pennsylvania, a school she had to furiously fight to attend over the strenuous objections of my parents. (Most parents want their children to go to college; not ours.)

Eventually, she won. It was there she met her future husband, settled down to raise her family, and built a life.

I clearly remember those first two-hour car trips in the early fall. Since my Dad was the “get up at the crack of dawn and into the car” kind of guy, the morning mist was still in the air as we drove west. That mist, to me, appeared tinged with gold as we drove past trees laden with orange and red leaves.

I think of those trips now with bittersweet memories. It was one of the few times we did something together as a family. Sadly, it was around that time my Dad became sick—sick with that disease, the disease we fear more than death itself. Despite surgery and treatments now considered commonplace but were in their primitive stages back then, the disease did its work swiftly, rupturing our family into bitter, remote pieces, figuratively and in some cases, geographically, never to coalesce as we once did on those trips to Pennsylvania (or the Jersey Shore in our much younger days). It was as if our collective grief curdled into a rust that was never scrapped off. Each of us, in our own way, splintered into separate worlds, thinking our pain gave us the right to do whatever we wanted without regard to the family as a whole—or the feelings of one another even though we were related by blood. But that was of another time. No use dredging up old wounds now.

Back to the present: The trip I took two weeks ago was something I felt I had to do, needed to do. I was tired, stressed and needed to get away. So I plunked down $30 bucks (about all I can spare for trips these days), filled up my 10-year-old Toyota and took off to PA. Even though a warmer than usual fall meant the trees were mostly green with occasional bursts of gold and deep red, there was still enough chill in the air to remind me of autumn despite our elongated Indian summer.

My sister and I bought apples at a nearby orchard, did some window shopping, and ate way too much delicious home-cooked food. It was a relaxing trip. Well, you must be thinking, doesn’t she have enough time to relax when she’s not working?

Not really. And I thank you not to judge. For the record, I agree that Job One for a jobless person is to find a job. As a human being, we need a break. We can take weekend road trips, have an occasional lunch with a friend.

Looking for a job, getting rejected for those jobs, hustling up and working on freelance assignments—it’s all very stressful. Unemployed job-seekers need a break just as much as any working person. How does it help any unemployed person to be so stressed out they fail at job interviews? Or develop high blood pressure?

No, even we need a break. Though I must admit, I can never fully leave behind the uncertainty of my situation. I’ve read a lot about “living in the now.” In essence, that philosophy maintains that we cannot think about the past, which only makes us depressed (okay, maybe that part about Dad and the family was better left unwritten). Nor should we think about the future, as that will only cause us anxiety. All we have is now, so enjoy as best we can. Of course, that assumes a person’s “now” doesn’t consist of joblessness or a serious illness.

Yet, I was able to relax and enjoy my brief escape into Pennsylvania. I didn’t dwell on my current situation, although it was always in the back of my mind, like a faint buzzing in the ear.

So, on Monday, I returned to my life, which meant looking for a job, working on scant-paying freelance assignments, and worrying, constantly worrying, about my finances.

What am I doing today? Well, I have to iron some clothes. I could work on some assignments, but I’m thinking of leaving those until tomorrow. I may even relax on my deck with a glass of wine later on this afternoon.

Because, just for a little while, I need a break.