I have never been a fan of cold weather. This is likely a result of my spending a significant portion of my adult life in tropical climates, watching my plastic lawn chairs melt. Yet, given a choice between 100 degrees Fahrenheit and zero degrees Whatever, I prefer the cloying madness of the Venusian summer to the bitter cold Martian winter.
But here on Earth I admit to a certain fondness for pictures of wintry, snow-covered landscapes, where water itself has apparently given up the ghost and joined the world of solid things. Such photographs conjure a world where hard edges are translated to soft curves, as if the land has conspired with gravity to catch you if you fall. In this picture-world I can imagine the harsh sounds of summer muted like a bell wrapped in wool.
As I gaze at such images I can appreciate the simple monochromatic grace without the accompanying wind chill. And I am cheered by the fact that I need not wrap myself in multiple layers of clothing to go outside, covering all exposed surfaces until I resemble a great round flannel ball, giggling like a loon.
Instead I can simply admire the purity and power such scenes convey, out there on the frozen tundra, a windswept surface whose uniformity is marred only by the irregular lumps of certain foolhardy loons who defied Kelvin’s First Law of Winter: Beware The Tundra – Unless We’re Talking Trucks, Then Head On Down That Lonesome Highway Good Buddy.
Pictures of winter suggest a place I can travel to in my mind whilst safely ensconced in the warmth of the Venusian Summer, surrounded by unused antique mukluks and faded copies of Loon Quarterly.
whoisfenton 