the winter of my discontent

I think my grandmother said it best; "Living in Minnesota in winter is like being trapped in someone's sock". The grey clouds seem like they're about ten feet above your head and they grey from the sky seems to leach out and mute the whole world.
Here in the city winter is like a meth-rotted tooth; brown, jagged and nasty. The D.O.T. dumps enough salt out onto the streets to mummify all of Egypt and the soot from the exhaust pipes of ten thousand cars seeps into the snow and reduces it to smoker's lungs. The mercury dips into the science fiction zone, wind jerks tears from your eyes like smoke and the cold becomes a frozen ghost that can pull the breath right out of your chest.
Winter means all of my little shortcuts dissappear, that if I wear the wrong piece of clothing parts of me will start to freeze off and that at any moment my bike may go out from under me and I'll go under the wheels of someone's car that they can't stop because they're on the same black ice that pulled me down.
Winter means long nights, withdrawing into the percieved safety of blankets and piles of rented movies. Winter is lethargy, having to fight to get on my bike everyday and make my sore muscles do the work of turning the cranks. Winter hurts; frostbite, depression, isolation, feeling the walls close in on you, breathing the same stale air for months until all you can smell and taste is claustrophobia.
Winter is hell without fire and yet still beautiful. Sterile and stark, leafless trees stretch imploring fingers to the gunmetal sky as if pleading for the return of the sun. Fresh snow softens the unrelenting lines and angles of the city, buries the cars and makes every lampost show the way into Narnia. The silence while snow is falling is profound, like the whole world is holding it's breath. The cold is bracing and the air is sharp and clear. When the sun makes an appearance the air itself seems to blaze blue white, so bright you have to slit your eyes or go glare blind.
Winter is that girl who knows she is so pretty that she'll get away with it when she hurts you. And that you'll always be there, rapt and dazzled, the next time.

On a related note, A.F.P. has been the bottomless bottle of booze that is getting me through the dark, ice crusted ass-end of the year. Her and this.