Todd R. Nelson is the author of “Cold Spell” (2022) and “The Land Between the Rivers” (2024), published by Down East Books. He lives in Penobscot.

Way back in the waning days of 2025, a friend surprised me with a calendar check. It was an unseasonably cold, dreary, gray and mizzling proto-winter day — and it was not yet, technically, winter. It was a reminder that we always live in seasonal expectation of what comes next. We dwell in climatic possibility.

“Only 25 more weeks until spring,” said Eric in an improvisational alert. We exchanged views about the snow that should be falling instead of cold rain, which only served to reinforce the weather expectations from then until March 20 and the vernal equinox.

But that’s just reckoning by celestial mechanics. The 20th is Mr. Rogers’ birthday and the celebration of the release of “Moondance” by Van Morrison — reckoning by cultural mechanics. The 21st is Bach’s birthday, shared by Billy Collins. Just sayin’.

Planting a temporal flag, like Eric did, creates a horizon to steer toward. During those 25 weeks, numerous markers speed by: inches of snow, freezing rain, plowing or shoveling and roof raking. Firewood and oil consumption too, of course.

We measure in basement floodings and culvert washouts; lunar waxing and waning; constellation arrival and departure; black ice; coyote, owl and fox choruses on a cold midnight. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

On the other hand, there’s nothing like the apricity of January and February. The light starts returning as soon as we celebrate the shortest day in December.

We are supposed to hunch, shrug and bear it — but I like winter, watching the days lengthen and the light return. I like the effort.

The next phrase to surface was this: “Do you go away?” The word “escape” is implied. What’s also implied is the speaker as escapee. Someone asked me that in the grocery line. It got my attention.

You mean, leave this? Heck no. This is the most wonderful time of the year — clear, bright, blue, bugless, contemplative and snug.

Winter gets a bad rap. It’s not just cold temperatures and suffering. Winter sounds are often subtle; sometimes fierce; always distinct. If I went away from winter, I would miss crunching snow underfoot, the ice falling off frozen birch branches and the “whomp” of heavy snow being shed by the fir trees, or the inner cracking of pines in the deep cold.

My imagination needs a reinstallation of these seasonal, sensual mnemonics. It’s good to experience the total archive of local sounds each year.

I’ve come to think of it like this: in winter, we are blues archivists, to borrow Eric Clapton’s phrase. “If it weren’t for bad [weather] we wouldn’t have no weather at all.” Call it “Stormy Monday” all month long. It’s all, “My baby’s gone. It’s so cold and the days are dark and short.”

Winter is Howlin’ Wolf! The people who have left must think they’re in a dysfunctional relationship. Nope. I don’t. It’s just a blues lyric. Your baby may be gone, but you are still
singing about it. So, there’s catharsis, a balm and a beat.

Sure, I also like spring, and I will be ready for her.

Meanwhile, let winter moan, here in the delta of the mighty Penobscot River. I hear my train a comin’. You gotta suffer if you want to sing the blues. Twenty-five weeks until spring, Eric said — and all of them in March. But who’s counting?