Seeing behind the leaves

Bare
London, ON
January 2022
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Most folks despise winter, and I get why: it's cold, wet, miserable, monotonous, dangerous.

You don't experience it as much as you fight it. Even taking a walk is a major production as you spend an inordinate amount of time collecting your cold weather gear, and carefully putting it on.

Once you're outside, you're either busting through deep snow, trying to stay upright on icy, unmaintained sidewalks and trails, or both. Then you get to reverse the entire process when you get home, with bonus points for anyone who wears eyeglasses. We'll leave the wet socks discussion for another day.

So we've established that it's a labor-intensive, annoying, sometimes-frightening time of year. But every dark side has its light.

Winter clears the leaves away, lets us see the underlying trees. The forest may be bare by the traditional definition, but that's only one way of looking at it.

Without leaves in the way, we can see the trunks and branches that form the structure of this impossibly diverse place. Normally it's all hidden, but winter exposes the skeleton, and lets us experience it in ways simply not possible the rest of the year.

The season may add challenge to the journey, but coming across scenes like this one makes me realize it's all worth it in the end. The leaves - and the warmth that feeds them - can wait.

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