I’m within a day of finishing Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” and looking forward to checking it off my To Do list. I’m jazzed to be armed with some cool new tools of self-awareness but worried that I’m still not very good at being fully present.  At the same time, I know I should be ignoring my “egoic mind” which whispers to me of competitive edges.

It’s winter in North Carolina. To northerners, this sounds lovely, so close to the Keys and all. Our pals on Maui feel for us and are taking the opportunity to finagle us back to the islands. Meanwhile, the people we left behind in Belize and Nicaragua get excited by the thought of tiny white crystals falling from the sky and only wish they could see snow one time.

At first blush, winter here seems cold. Sometimes very cold. And brown and dead. Just like it was for us in Colorado and Virginia. And dark with its shortened days.

If I take winter one day at a time, I find that many of winter’s days are golden. Bright, blue sky, single jacket wearing weather. Dry and clean and perfect for long, rustling walks through the woods, spotting details formerly obscured by lush undergrowth.

There are days when quick trips to the compost pile turn leisurely as I contemplate the mystery of avian nesting routines.  On those days I find myself standing beneath the red tips, mesmerized by the music of dozens of tiny peeping voices.

These golden days of winter are good days for hanging laundry and raking leaves. Good days for trimming otherwise untamable vines and hammering replacement staples into fence posts. Good days for sitting on the porch with the sun on my forehead. Good days for being good.

I never actually expect winter to happen. After living in the tropics for eight years, I kind of got out of the habit.

I’ve heard people say that we don’t really have winter in the south, but that’s not my reality. I know that North Carolina is considered part of “The South” but it feels like the north to me. For one thing, there are no avocados growing here. No breadfruit, either. At 35.622 degrees north of the Equator, Moncure is peach country, not mango country.

Maui – January, 2003 and Moncure -January, 2009

And here its happened again – we’ve got winter. No matter how deep I am in denial, winter keeps happening. It’s been cold for months and then, just like the weather service predicted, we got snow. I looked out the window and saw it swirling around the garden and blanketing the lawn. I couldn’t believe it, so I propped the door open with my foot and took a picture.

Later, I saw my friends playing in the snow, but still I didn’t want to go outside. They were romping like kids in the stuff. It looked cold and wet – two conditions I try to avoid. Finally, I forced myself outside. With a leaf rake, I cleared our back steps. I took a whisk broom and dusted off Christine, our faithful car.

Lauren and Val walked by, dragging branches from the woods to burn in the stove next door. They were planning on making snow cream. Meanwhile, a pot of coconut cream potato/corn chowder simmered on our stove. I tried not to think about how nice some breadfruit chips would go with that soup.

As I chatted with Lauren and Val and saw how happy they were, I found myself enjoying the day despite myself. The sun felt good, the sky was bright and clear and the air was fresh. I let down my guard and embraced it for a moment and then I ran back inside.