Dear Winter:

Please come back. I miss you.

It was cute at first, you disappearing. I thought it was for effect, maybe. You just wanted to wait till the best moment, then, surprise! You’d show yourself when we least expected it. You flake, you.

But another week slid by.

Then I thought maybe you were making fun of all those weatherpeople who predicted a deep freeze. Stupid “media-rologists” and their TV-ready descriptions of complex systems. (“After the break, we’ll tell you about tomorrow’s Sleet Quasar!”)

You showed them, I thought. But, then, still no sign of you.

Most recently, I thought maybe you wanted to make a point about other disappearances – manufacturing jobs, polar bears, the Toronto Maple Leafs at playoff time. These are good, important points to make. But, if that was your intention, your point has been made.

Where are you? You snapped in Edmonton a couple times, and blew through the Maritimes this week, but that’s been pretty much it.

Let’s have some Real Talk, OK? You’re being selfish.

If you won’t think of us, won’t you think of the children? You’re denying kids important life lessons they only learn when you’re around. Like, when I was young, I learned that sledding had an elaborate social pecking order, from the kid who owned a GT Snowracer (King of the Hill) to the kid with the Crazy Carpet that was always reverting to its Fruit Roll-Up shape (Lowly Serf).

You provided me some of my only adventures growing up. In New Brunswick, we didn’t have any of the most common natural disasters – hurricanes, earthquakes, Bryan Adams concerts. The only Discovery Channel doc you’d ever see filmed in my hometown is Fog Chasers.

So, craving excitement, I had to get by with delivering newspapers in blizzards or playing street hockey in -15 C weather. It’s perhaps sad that I’ve never felt more alive.

If this is what it takes to get you back, let me say this: I’m sorry. I’m sorry I took you for granted.

You were harsh, but I realize now it was necessary. A playful pinch to the cheeks or even a cold slap is a welcome respite from the limp handshake of the muddy impostor that has taken your place.

I miss making the first scritch-scritch footprints in a park of untouched snow. I miss Arctic fog rising off the water on a frigid day. I miss your cold embrace.
 The place just isn’t the same without you, Winter. Come back: my Crazy Carpet is always unrolled for you.