Winter Is a Dimpled Rascal Ne’er-Do-Well Slugabed Scoundrel

Winter’s stolen all my friends and turned them into dithering fools // In my headphones: Ry Cooder—I Think Its Going To Work Out Fine (1979)

Widely throughout the fifty nearest towns in New England, all the maidens say that Winter is a scoundrel. One even said he’s known to bring upon a sort of cracking.

“He happens to us, and we’ve no choice but to suffer through him,” they say.

One girl from Marylville said he brings upon a kind of trudging. “We haven’t any say when he comes and when he goes, or where. He’s infuriating, maddening,” she rasps. “The only way around him is through him. We stand on the edge of his heartless expanse, and then we must cross him. We have no say, and so we resign ourselves. It’s heavy work. It tires you out like hell. But, man, is he beautiful!”

Another little lady told me he’s got a habit of denuding, covering everything up and making it so bright white it is effectively blank as a chalkboard. “His is a project of resurfacing, except the former state does not go away. He just builds and builds atop himself, while the layers beneath him disappear. And we just stand here while he preens!”

Above all, they say being with him is just about what you’d expect. Can’t no self-respecting guy take kindly to that! Talking to him is knowing exactly what will happen, and when. Much has been said on what is said about knowing exactly what to expect and still being upset anyways. But it is often said that it is said for a reason, girl.

“I heard that’s the definition of insanity,” one girl said to me. “He causes resignation, suffocation, explication, realization, calculation, determination, estimation, and on and on, until finally, capitulation.”

Capitulation! My, must the women of New England suffer so? And helplessly, willingly, resignedly on?

Well, I’ve studied the man hard, and I’ve come to a conclusion. There are ways of making him love you better, of course, chief among which is pretending. But no matter whether you stay inside and look out, holed up, or dress up and go out, the cracking, the trudging, the denuding, the knowing, they’ll get you. To see the inevitability in outrunning this rascal is futile, but to deny him is impossible.

My most miserable friend looks happiest beside him, my most wretched friend feels content when he smiles upon her. My most electric friend is deuced by his intuition, and my cruelest friend is exalted by his favor. My teachers, of course, are the same as they’ve ever been; he don’t mean that much to them.

He hollows you out and dumps you. Then, he turns you around and ruffles your hair. He scratches in a way that excites you. He stretches you acutely; he cuts you deeply, heals you meekly.

He is the one for whom the girls who clench their fists throw them up at last. “I never understood the war for predestination until now,” they laugh!

He even causes the skipping ones to stare into their palms, while the sad ones just look long and on.

Way up East, the wind is blowing. It is mighty cold, it is sneaky bleak, yet no one here has heard a peep. Has he gone or will he stay?

“Oh I wish I couldn’t see myself so well’s I do in his bluest blue eyes!” cries the Missus Snoey Bride. “But ooooooh—oh! He paints a natural tint upon my cheeks, he swells my lips and cracks my frosted eyelids wiiiiiiide open. He strips my face of residue, and he makes me beautiful and also the coldest, the forlornest, the most desperate and desolate I’ve ever been. With him, the air so hurts to touch my face I want to cry but I only leak.”

To this I said, “If you’re blue, you’re blue. If you’re bleeding, you sure are bleeding. And if you’re bad, it’s easier to make do than if you’re happy.” She just smiled down her nose.

And so he is to you what a crystal ball is to an augur—the wrong machine but the right idea. The deuced, elated, wretched, smiling, electric thing about this forsaken son is he tricks your fear into elation and takes your gladness and makes it temptation. Yes, Winter is a dimpled rascal bad-boy son, and you’d do well to keep him bleating.

~

📍A town among frozen hamlets

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An icy creek winds its way up the mountain that borders our town.