I really like winter. I think this is one reason why my husband and I were made for each other. We have no desire to live in a warmer clime. We like the snow and cold. Maybe it’s a kind of weather Stockholm syndrome, maybe all these Michigan winters have brainwashed me, but I love them. Even the gray. Lots of people like winter in Minnesota or whatever, where it’s sunny even when it’s cold. But here in Michigan, we are cloudy and gray and cold for much of winter. And I love it.

Obviously, winter can also be horrible. When there’s ice, when I have to drive through a snowstorm, when we lose power and there’s an Arctic vortex or whatever happening. Winter is horrendous at those times. I’m sure for the people going through an ice and snowstorm right now, winter is the worst. And deadly.

I’m not immune to the fears of winter’s deadliness. I feel them. I know them, in fact.

But I also know that I don’t want to live in a warmer place. I tried Southern California in autumn. It was the pits. I couldn’t imagine never feeling the snow and cold, never tasting the air when its below zero, never catching a whiff of fireplace smoke drifting through the pale-pink evening on a short walk through the silent street.

And when the cold gets so bitter against my skin, I can feel the sting of it on my cheeks, and my nose is dripping like crazy, and the house is just ahead, and my lungs are stinging from breathing the brittle air; I catch the doorknob, push open the front door and step into the embrace of my home’s warmth: that’s when I love winter. I love it for the daunting coldness and the challenge of a long walk through the falling snow, but also for the way it lets me come home. A chance to sit beside the window and watch the light fade, drinking tea or cocoa, wrapped in a blanket, feeling my cold cheeks with the back of my hand. Feeling content.

That’s what I love.