The Old Field Tree

I recently moved to rural Vermont after 28 years of living in Indiana. Because I grew up in a somewhat rural area of Indiana, I had expected my adjustment to the countryside to be familiar.

And it was, for as long as the snow wasn’t falling. The summers in Vermont are colorful and warm, and fall is a season unlike any other here. But the snow started to fall in late November, and it really hasn’t left ever since.

I’m told by a few locals that this has been an unusually snowy winter. As someone who has always loved winter and snow, the first couple of snowfalls were filled with excitement. Back in Indiana, it usually snowed a couple of times each winter, and each snowfall felt like it had a sense of novelty.

Three months in here, surrounded by white, cooped up indoors, it hit me. I began to be frustrated by the constant cover of snow. It felt like it was messing with my mind and suffocating me. The lack of color in the landscape is outstanding. Mostly white, some brown, blues, and gray. The sunrise and sunsets bring the most color. But mostly, these months were made of white.

The lack of color in the outdoor environment provided an opportunity for internal reflection. While I still love a good snowfall, I realize that snow can lose its novelty. If you’re around it enough, it becomes a challenge to accept. It is hard to find motivation to go outside in the cold, which requires suiting up with multiple layers that make movement hard, and trudging over snow and ice.

I understand some people in Vermont do outdoor activities such as skiing or ice skating to cope with the seasonal depression, but I haven’t ventured out yet. Perhaps if I had, it may have been a more tolerable first winter. Regardless of activities though, you are forced inside more.

What I have done though, is gone on a couple of winter drives, prioritized short winter walks, and if there looks like a cool weather phenomenon going on outside (like rime ice from freezing fog), I try to go outside and experience it.

Feeding the birds during the winter and watching them do the same thing every day — eat, is also a reminder that maybe winter doesn’t need to be as busy as we make it. Most animals quite literally are only focused on finding food and survival.

One of the coolest things about being in a snow laden environment is the ability to track animals. A fresh layer of snow fall provides a blank canvas for the tracking of all types of wildlife. The haphazard opossum trail, the diligent fox trail, or the tiny bird feet that cover large areas — seeing the visible imprint of wildlife going about their winter day is a small joy of this darker season, and a reminder that we aren’t the only ones here trying to survive.

The white landscape may not be teeming with an abundance of biodiversity or life, but it is a reminder of resistance, of strength, and of beauty in the quiet, calm, and sometimes colorless moments.