What a difference from the summer, when the birds wake us hours earlier in softly growing dawnlight, and all the windows are open to catch the night breezes.

I can picture our present situation perfectly, just as Miss Bennett depicted it for us in 8th-grade Science class: our spherical earth, with its axis tipped in relation to its elliptical orbit, looping around a stationary sun once each year, and spinning like a giant top once a day. The spot we live on is vivid in memory – halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, and like a roast turning on a spit, emerging regularly to warm up in the heat of the beneficent star only eight minutes away. That spot on the earth, as I write this evening, is almost as deep in the shadow as it ever gets. But it’s nowhere nearly as cold as it’s going to get.

Far north of this spot, in the Arctic, where the sun hardly reaches at all this time of year, a large mass of air is rapidly cooling, sinking heavily of its own weight to the surface of the frozen earth, and spreading like pancake batter. When it spreads far enough, its fringes will snag on the prevailing winds of the jet stream, and bits of it will come whirling southward to test our resolution, creativity, car batteries, and water pipes.

My friend Larry Whittaker at 67º49’N, has it much darker than we do. His village of Kugluktuk is approaching total lack of sunlight. He doesn’t have it too cold yet; Googling his current weather, I get 16ºF, light snow in a mild northwest wind, and 100% humidity. But unless he and Helen have the drapes drawn, all they’re seeing, pretty much around the clock, is their own reflections in the windows.

We tend to make a big deal of the darkness and cold. Seasonal Affective Disorder is much on our lips and in our minds, and I must admit I’ve taken the trouble to install full-spectrum lights in part of my shop. But consider the much greater effect of darkness upon our ancestors – and not very distant ones, either. We can turn our backs on the long nights and gaze at television and computer screens; there’s no flashlight or dimmed kerosene lamp beside our bed because our walls are studded with (perfume-emitting) night lights illuminating the way to the (indoor) bathroom; and we’ve forgotten – if we ever knew – what an incredible convenience it was for a farmer to get electric lights in the barn.

One thing a lot of us older folks haven’t forgotten, though, is the pure joy of dragging our sleds to nearby hills, getting hours of vigorous exercise we weren’t even aware of, and returning home red-faced and soaking wet to cups of hot cocoa. I see that L.L. Bean is still selling the Flexible Flyer, but it feels as if they’re marketing it as an antique or a collectible, rather than something a kid actually might use.

Our endocrine systems are reacting to the reduced light and increased cold by pumping seasonal juices through our bodies – juices that tell us to slow down, take a nap (maybe even for months), and eat lots of fattening food. But thousands of us are refusing to listen to that message. Thus the skis and snowboards on top of cars; snowshoes leaning against the wall on a back porch; and festivals, races, and marathons too many to shake a ski pole at. Every New Year’s Day there’s a crowd of climbers swarming up 4800-foot Mount Moosilauke. In late February another crowd of slightly mad skiers races 3000 feet down Mount Mansfield in the Stowe Derby. The 100-mile Canadian Ski Marathon, on Valentine Day weekend, attracts thousands. I’d go again, but I’m getting a bit too brittle, and Charles Caccia, my longtime skiing partner, died a year ago last spring. Toronto, Saranac Lake, Montreal, and Quebec City all have terrific winter carnivals. (A tip: If you go to the Carnaval in Ville de Québec, limit yourself to just two slugs of caribou, even if it’s free.) With all those hundreds of energetic winter things for all ages and abilities, nobody can languish around here for want of activities.

Still, it’s lovely now and then to sit in my reclining chair by the front window on the coldest winter days, which are invariably clear and sunny, and wrestle with the Sunday crossword puzzle. The house faces solar south, and has lots of glass on that side. The shadow of a Celtic cross in a half-moon window in the middle of the front gable acts as a sundial during the low sun angle of winter’s standard time; at noon it’s directly above the stove on the opposite wall. I’d put marks on the wall for the other hours, as well, but that idea hasn’t gained much traction yet with Mother.

Meanwhile, like Pollyanna, I try to reflect on the bright side of winter. Just three weeks from the day I’m writing this, our planet will slowly begin to turn its northern hemisphere (that’s us) toward the waiting sun. And as Miss Bennett told us long ago, because its orbit brings it closest to the sun at midwinter, it is therefore now traveling at its fastest. Thus winter is about two or three days shorter in our latitude than summer. Now, if I could just find a ten-letter word for “melee”...