From Inisde The Allan Gardens Conservatory Yesterday Afternoon.

I don’t know what this time of like is like where you live, but these days on the show, Wigmore teases me about my new found appreciation of this thing we’re in here in Toronto called Canadian winter.  It’s because when he first met me he witnessed this summer baby’s reaction to this dreaded annual happening, something  you wouldn’t want to know: humourless, pissy, dreadful.  Fact: Whenever summer was coming to an end, the internal despair I experienced just thinking about winter was acute, no exaggeration.  And I only made it worse by complaining, and then noticing even more to complain about.

Last winter I decided for my own sanity I had to take control.  I began to seek moments of  beauty, especially when I was stuck in winter’s worst, perhaps struggling on salty sidewalks in subzero temperatures with two dogs bundled up like toddlers (see below).  Allan Gardens, easily one of my favourite spots in Toronto, where I walk Jack and Ella regularly, offered amazing examples with each visit. Instead of focusing on the mire and muck of it all, I instead began to spot the likes of elegant dark silhouettes that were the park’s trees, frosted with sparkling snow.  Quite simply, winter could appear like an oil painting – once I stopped to look.

Spotting winter beauty began to be as easy as finding things to complain about, and from there my feelings about winter and my reaction to it have changed, dramatically.  For one thing, last winter didn’t seem the eternal damnation past winters have – a first. Best of all, when 2009’s summer and autumn faded away, I found myself actually looking forward – yes, forward – to winter’s offerings.  Several days ago I was on a train speeding through the Quebec / Ontario countryside in the middle of a snow flurry, and as I watched transfixed.  I was in true awe of this vortex of snow I was in, watching bare trees emerging from frozen lakes, spotting ancient rock faces trapped under ice.  Not long ago, I would have averted my eyes.

So there you go.  A deliberate attitude shift, and I’m actually for the first time in my life okay with this challenging season.  I top it off by remembering that each day we are one day closer to spring.

This weekend we saw such a cold snap Saturday and a chilly one yesterday.  But when I was out, I still looked for beauty and it was easy to find.  Here  are my favourite sightings:

Beauty's Where You Find It.

A Pocket Of Pretty.

I've Grown To Love This Frozen-In-Time Look.

Back Inside The Conservatory (One Of My Favourite Winter Hideouts, Even If Only For Five Minutes).

The Cactus Section Is My Favourite - Mmmmm HOT

Not Pretty. Ever.

Let me end by saying though that not matter what, it’s not all beauty.  That final shot is of the excessive salt that a neighbour of mine tossed outside his townhouse door, apparently too lazy to pick up a shovel, not that there was even that much snow.  There is one thing that Toronto sucks at during winter and it is the use of salt.  I’m unsure of any other city in the country that goes as overboard.  Salting has replaced shoveling, and while I think it’s in part to the by-laws that allow people to sue other people if they slip and fall outside their property, it’s still just inane.  Then there are our roads, which are SO oversalted.  In all, it’s a mess.  Salt ruins your shoes / boots, it’s terrible for your car, and find me the dog who can walk on it without crying out in pain.  Sorry to leave things on a salty note (badump-bump) but I hate the shit.

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