Being True To Me...

Sitting in foggy south Florida this morning with temperatures hovering in the low 70s as dawn breaks.

We came to spend Christmas as a family and to take a brief respite from our northern life.  It's been a wonderful stay full of love and fun and laughter, but as always when I come to this part of the world in Winter, I loose contact with the rhythm of the seasons.  It blurs my consciousness and makes me fuzzy-headed to be in soft temperatures in January.  Part of me still, after all these years, is bound to the romance of the cold and dark of winter.  I find myself craving a different kind of morning mist, one where I lash on heavy boots and walk, inhaling the smell of peaty, wet earth.

I think it wonderful that friends here love being warm all the time.  Their personalities shrivel and reduce when they are faced with strong biting winds and fierce lashing rain. They have found a place where their hearts soar.  But this is not for me.  I long now for a roaring fire and to listen to soft snow falling.

I have spent my time here, have held my children and refilled that bottomless cup, if only temporarily.  Now it is time to go home, to return to the climate that permits my breath to flow evenly and calmly.  To wash my sun-scorched eyes with scenery that glows in the overwhelming beauty of nature temporarily gone to ground, silently restoring itself in preparation of impending Spring.