the view from where i sit is rather grey

In drear-nighted December,

Too happy, happy tree,

Thy branches ne'er remember

Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them

With a sleety whistle through them;

Nor frozen thawings glue them

From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,

Too happy, happy brook,

Thy bubblings ne'er remember

Apollo's summer look;

But with a sweet forgetting,

They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many

A gentle girl and boy!

But were there ever any

Writhed not at passed joy?

The feel of not to feel it,

When there is none to heal it

Nor numbed sense to steel it,

Was never said in rhyme.

Seattle winters could crush you with their interminable grey-ness. Poem: In drear-nighted December, John Keats. Photos: vi.sualize, Pringle of Scotland Pre-Fall, Rag and Bone.

upon the mountains and the moors

I just can't get the snow out of my head! It's incredible how much influence the weather has over my mood; sunny summers make me effusive and magnanimous, crisp autumns awaken my inner high-strung prepster, and rainy winters turn me pensive and somber...but I think I like my snowy personality best. Looking out the window at a frosted landscape seems to endow me with an innate sense of tranquility and restfulness, as if one dusting of snow has put the world in order. Everything shines. These drifts gloss over the dirty pavement and the dead tree branches and the dark patches of the world until every last corner is filled with light. I know the snow will melt and I know that all too soon I'll be waxing poetic about a rapturous spring, but until then I'll let these silverquiet days linger on like a silent breath hanging in thin air.

gazing on the new soft-fallen mask/of snow upon the mountains and the moors

This year, winter in Washington has left me throughly underwhelmed. Usually, the Seattle area gets at least a sprinkling of snow, but this year it seems we've been bypassed completely. The weather has alternated between being so bitterly cold that any sort of precipitation is an impossibility, and the old standby: Pewter skies, temperatures in the mid-forties, and the constant need for an umbrella. I love Seattle, truly, I do - but for me, no winter is complete without snow. It's my favorite thing; I love the way it makes the world seem clean and new and soft. I love its smell and its texture. I'm leaving for Montana this week to go skiing, and I honestly could not be more excited. Finally, I get to leave this pitiful excuse for a season behind and break out my twin-tips!

You may scoff, but I am intensely jealous of the inhabitants of the Northeast right now. I would take a 3-day blizzard over this constant see-through drizzle any day. Until we leave for the mountains on Monday, I'll only be dreaming of one thing...

(Isn't this magical? It reminds me of Swan Lake.)