Confront Winter With Getaway Beacons

BACK TO BASICS | by SHERRY STRIPLING

“WINTER MUST BE COLD for those with no warm memories.”

― From the film “An Affair to Remember”

When it finally dawned on me that winter comes every year and that family death marches known as “the holidays” are hardly respites, I put my faith in little winter getaways: The guaranteed path to spring.

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Be they big, be they small. Be they into sunshine or facing winter weather dead on. The real benefit of these getaways is as beacons on the horizon ― one (or more!) to light up January, February and March.

One of our annual trips is deep into the woods for three days of cross-country skiing. The rustic cabins are out of cell-phone and Internet reach. The trails are groomed but isolated and with great dollops of powder snow.

As long as we keep moving, we keep warm. There’s very little daylight but we know the trails well enough by now that we venture out again at night ― our headlamps daring coyotes and owls.

Exuberant, exhausted, invigorated, we return to the reward of down comforter, warm light outlining the log walls:  hours of cozy reading with no Ring! Ring!

Each February, we walk into the storm at the ocean. Sometimes we meet friends from out of state to romp on the beaches, come in, warm up and go back out again. At night, we eat hearty meals and play games, play music and renew affections.

Mexico. Hawaii. The Caribbean. Arizona. They’re all winter goals we have yet to meet but their benefits need no explanation.

We do at least one neighboring big-city weekend for museums, IMAX movies, walks in city parks and luxurious ethnic meals we can’t find at home.

Small wonders that work! Winter, we confront thee ― with glorious guideposts get us through.