No, I don't really mean that. I'm not even all that depressed, just weighed down by the thought of another endless winter, and I'm too broke to get away to someplace warm. Gary and Tom are going back to South Africa, and they have a space for me. Unfortunately I cannot afford the trip, nor get the time off from work.
At least I don't have it as bad as this Moose. It will be lucky to survive the season at all.
Winter can be a lonely, and depressing time. I go to work in the dark, work all day in a windowless cubicle, and come home in the dark. On weekends I get to see some daylight.
Young people who grow up around here adapt to the weather much better than wimps like me who grew up in Southern California. The temperature was in the teens when I shot this photo. Shorts and t-shirt weather for some of these youngsters. As I go to work, I pass by groups of school children waiting for the bus. There are always several of them, (boys always) who are too macho to wear a coat.
Cabin fever, anyone? Being outdoors, even on the gloomiest of days can help to brighten up one's attitude.
There are natural ornaments on the trees of winter to lighten a heavy heart.
Some of them are not safe to loiter underneath for too long.
Red foxes, and some other opportunists, do just fine in harsh weather. I wish I could think like a fox.
This painting from a few years back expresses my feelings about the newly arrived cold season. It's just something that has to be endured. That does'nt mean I can't whine about it from time to time.
This painting from a few years back expresses my feelings about the newly arrived cold season. It's just something that has to be endured. That does'nt mean I can't whine about it from time to time. 
9 comments:
Gees, I thought Lofgreen was americanized from Lofgren, in which case you might have some genes for dealing with long cold winters. Guess i was wrong. Hang in there and keep painting of warmer times. Your art is terrific.
My viking ancestors would be ashamed of me. I think about the Inupiaq people living in complete darkness on the north slope. They can look forward to a meal of Walrus blubber, or whale blubber. Stinky Fish Head Soup for variety. I guess that I have it pretty good. I still want to go to South Africa.
Maybe you got the Lee/Hill Southern circadian rhythms and not the Lofgreen/Pederson Nordic versions.
I was one of those kids, but even down here in Southeast, the winters are emotional downers (and we get quite a bit more light and less snow than you).
Got to get out in it!
Oh so right Jeremy. It also helps to just take one day at a time, and not count the days, weeks, months til summer. It's not like summer is all that nice most of the time anyway.
I told my husband it was going to be a long winter as the mountain ash trees are abundant with berries and it seems when they are winter comes early and here it is. I am housebound as of halloween, the snow is pretty and all but it sucks to have a disability where its unsafe to get out for a walk cause if I fall who knows how long I would lie there before someone would help me up.
Sad thing is my fears are not unreasonable as I slipped on ice crossing a city street ten years ago and landed flat on my back, no one helped me up and when the light changed and I was crawling off the street on hands and knees, people just drove their car around me, talk about fear mixed with excruciating pain. Its embedded on my being. I buy lots of carnations in the winter to keep spring dreams alive.
John, i live in Catalonia, a place of north east side of Spain where the climate are mediterranean;i fill just in the opposite situation of you.I never connect with this kind of enbironment, i allways desire tho living in a country that having a taiga or boreal forest.You can observe my artwork for understand it, where i fill much inspiration for the Rusian and North american boreal forest and the Ice Age megafauna.When the long summer arribe in my country i become nervous and lazy i can't to paint much time in my home.I fill nostalgia for the marked stationality of the continental climate,i fill strange the mediterranian whinter that never snow,where the freeze are weak,when the forest are scarce and thiner, the trees are lower,and the sun are so insistent and tiresome, i sometimes i fill irritation and hangry for the hiting climate since may to october.I fill bery happy when a walking with snowshoe in the quiet frosty boreal forest or stay under the shadow of firs and spruces in the summer, and enjoy the fresh carpet of the mosshes lichens accompanied with mushroms berries willows and dwarf birches of these environments.For me: THE BOREAL FOREST,ARE MY LOST PARADISE JOHN!!!!.
Tess, It makes me mad to hear that people just drove around you without helping. I cannot imagine that happening.
Have you thought about a motorized wheelchair? It's not ideal, but you wont slip with that.
Marc,
Thank you for helping me to better appreciate what I have all around me. In Catalonia, I guess that a lot of your wildlife comes out at night. Do you ever roam natural areas at night? I did a lot of that in Arizona. It can be very exhilerating.
It looks cold but very beautiful.
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