It’s true. It’s cold here. And wet. And slippery. And sometimes a snowflake journeys thousands of feet from a cloud only to land right between your scarf and coat collar.  Winter is upon us. And by upon us, I mean that in every sense of the word. On our cars, on our heads, on the lake.

And I am upon the snow, squeaking on my way to the bus stop, hoping I’ll make the 1:15.

Half way there, I sink deeper into my scarf. Nothing can get me to increase my speed past a persistent plod.

So far, we’ve had a bomb cyclone, a Polar Vortex, just plain cold, nose hair freezing cold, Christmas snow, predictions of April snow, in your boot snow, good snowman making snow, and fluffy snow.

Each branch has its own coating of snow and so do all the bushes, hills, long-stay cars in the parking lot, toes of each of my boots. It’s quiet. The rhythm of my steps, the silence of a snow-muted campus get me.

I’m at the bus stop waiting for the #9 to turn the corner. It’s late, and when it comes I glance down at the mound of snow between me and the platform of the bus. Two options: try to gingerly hop over the snow or just sink in and bang it off of my boots and pant leg once I’m in. I opt for the first option. But I miss and sink in anyways.

Nice. In my seat now, in the heat. I watch winter out the window. Snowflakes float sideways and up and sometimes down. Cars progress at reduced speeds. Winter has us. It’s telling us to slow down. It’s telling us to quiet down.

So I do.

On my way home now and it’s the golden hour. I see veins of light in the clouds and then suddenly, the sun splits through. It shoots light through hundreds of floating flakes like a fiber optic desk lamp and I stand hypnotized.

Eventually, the sun sinks low enough and bathes the city with pink light, on doorframe and front steps and on the rounded mounds on peoples’ roofs. The bus rumbles on, and the city flies by.

In just a few hours, the show is over, as the sun sinks.

It’s late, and I’m in my car now, rolling up my driveway. My ears are ringing from the day’s ping pong of school, work, music, podcasts, information in, information out. But I pull into my driveway, and the car engine sputters out, and I crack open the car door. Clear, cold air. The kind that smells like ice and quiet. The world outside is shut up under the snow. I take a second and watch.

Winter in Michigan is slow and persistent. It blankets us, quiets us and makes us slow down. The seasons push us around: wet, warm spring burns out into bright heat of summer and then sweeps us around in the blustery, technicolor fall, and then, once the show is over, draws the curtain and puts things to rest for a bit. I love Michigan for this, especially West Michigan. Here, the unique concoction of cold and warm air, the lake, the land, the elevation work to keep us on our toes. We never quite settle into the humdrum of winter because there is no humdrum. It’s always changing.

And sometimes, we fight it. We don’t want the snow to be where it is, when it is, but it just is. So we work around it. We spend more time indoors with our friends. We take things slower. We bundle up and unbundle and then bundle up again. Melted snow gets on the kitchen floor. If you haven’t experienced it, it’s hard to describe, but winter here does something to you that I wouldn’t trade. The snow has made me think.