Winter Warmth

Though overcast, there’s a familiar brightness to the grey overhead. It looks and feels like snow is in the air.  Forecasts notwithstanding, we’re expecting to get clobbered here in the northeast with record-cold temperatures.

Winter is en route.

Yet, in spite of this aura of grey that spills over the city, if we look close enough you can find various levels of warmth. Many of the objects seen, displayed and taken for granted in the roteness of our days can hint at or suggest a touch of warmth.

And while warm colors, hues and even some words or phrases can suggest some attribute of warmth, cold weather, specifically very cold weather, adds a bit of insouciance.

If you’ve spent most of your life in the northeast, a good number of you then understand finding this warmth. As the saying goes, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes.”

Winter Colors [sort of…..]

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen….” and so goes the opening chorus of a popular spiritual song, which, in light of this year’s winter snow, feels appropo. I can’t remember a time when so much cold and snow visited our fair states. Substitute “winter” for “trouble” in the opening line and you can get a good sense of what burdens the lot of us. The quantity of snow has wreaked havoc on just about everything, and I mean everything.

But, all is not lost. This past weekend, scores of winter-weary New Englanders flocked to Smith College to soak in the colors, aromas and textures of the annual flower show. To wit:

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This year’s theme, “Monet’s Garden,” contains relevance. The artist had a fondness for working the earth as well as the paint brush. Monet had indicated that aside from painting and gardening, “he wasn’t good at anything.”

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It seems that both gardening and painting were a very good fit for him.

 

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Details from a Monet watercolor served as back drops along the display

 

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