Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Winter Sunrise


My grandparents were from upstate New York, and my mother lived there until she graduated from high school. I can remember her telling me that when the family moved down here to southern Pennsyvania how much they preferred the winters. It wasn't the cold of New York that they minded, but the seemingly never-ending gloomy winter days. She said they never had bright, sunny winter days where they lived, and that was what they really liked about Pennsylvania's winters.
Not this year.
This winter hasn't yet been overly cold. Certainly, I haven't had long stretches of cold or normal winter weather. But I have had long stretches of overcast, gloomy days. This is only made worse by the shortened hours of daylight. My only chance to be outside during daylight is on Saturday, and when Saturday is gloomy, it's another full week before I have another chance to see the sun. Perhaps that's why I've been overly focused on looking at the sunrises lately. Even in this gloomy weather--and today shows every sign of being overcast again--the sunrises have been quite lovely for a minute or two before the sun slips behind the cloud cover yet again.

5 comments:

smilnsigh said...

I don't know which part of upstate NYS your mother was from... But I've lived in upstate NYS for all my 70 years. :-) And I don't think of my winters as being made up of never-ending gloomy days.

But I repeat, I don't know which part of my neck of the woods, she came from.

Also, our weather has changed over the years. I remember huge snow storms of great depths of snow. Which weren't that common, before or after. I think that local weather patterns change, like world wide weather patterns change.

We know that Victorian UK winters had snow. They called it the Mini Ice Age. Change is as natural as Mother Nature. So, I don't get totally caught up in this Global Warming thing. Yes, I try to conserve and not be stupid about earth resources. But... Change happens. Everything changes. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Sorry your mom experienced so much gloomy weather up here, in winter time. :-) We still have our share, but it's not never-ending seeming. :-)

Mari-Nanci

Carolyn H said...

My grandparents were (usually) in and around the Binghampton-Elmira-Johnson City areas.

Carolyn H.

Anonymous said...

It has been gloomy at times this winter. Today and yesterday were kinda gloomy at times. However the days are getting longer and spring is on her way.

Anonymous said...

It does seem like I'm pushing through molasses right now. I've noticed many of the blogs I visit are light on posting too.

Carolyn H said...

Cathy: I could handle the gloom if I was home (or outside) during the day. I'm starting to feel like vampire, though.

Pablo: I like that--pushing through molasses. I think I'm just used to pretty winters with snow on the ground. What I have now seems like an endless November.

Carolyn H.