The roads are more narrow now, the mountainous snowbanks swallowing acreages of asphalt all over the Island. Sidewalks lie buried as if hibernating until spring, and the morning commute, such as it is on the Island, slows to a crawl as cars move tenderly across icy roads. The world of humans has become one of complaints and cabin fever after a month of real winter.

The antidote is to look in a different direction. Start with the trees, the strong and silent sentinels that never whine. From there look to the fields and meadows, still fluffy white rather than the murky brown of the slush laden roads. Watch as a rabbit hops along the surface of a snowbank, or dives deep underneath, disappearing in form but not function. The path is clearly defined by the tunnel it makes, like that of a mole tearing through the roots of a garden in summer.

Elsewhere, squirrels raid bird feeders and the birds let them know what they would do to them if only they had teeth, too. In a barn a baby lamb takes its first steps and then is licked warm by its mother.

And surrounding all of this is the sea, our sea, white-capped or full of ice near the shore, a momentous sight to even the weariest winter eye. To live seasonally is to live with change, guaranteeing this and nothing more. This too shall pass, but why not stop and marvel a moment before it does.