![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphGoing for a walk under the gibbous day-moon helped straighten out the kinks in my neck, and made my ears and the tip of my nose numb, so that they tingled when I came back into the warm house. As long as I have lived here, I have never become fully accustomed to the winter cold. I am less uncomfortable than I was for the first few years, but, this time of year, I really miss the southern California climate. Still, while the air is a bit chilly for me, I must say that I love the winter light in the mountains.
I think it was John Muir who said that the Sierra Nevada ought to have been called the Range of Light rather than the Snowy Range. He must have been thinking of this brilliant winter sunlight, and the way it is reflected by the pines. The ponderosas in particular have very shiny needles, and, when the sun hits them just right, they glitter almost as brightly as glass. It is that, even more than the chill in the air, that makes this season seem so sharp and brittle here, as though the scene before my eyes might shatter at any moment. The strength of the underlying stone is no match for the delicacy of the winter day.
I think it was John Muir who said that the Sierra Nevada ought to have been called the Range of Light rather than the Snowy Range. He must have been thinking of this brilliant winter sunlight, and the way it is reflected by the pines. The ponderosas in particular have very shiny needles, and, when the sun hits them just right, they glitter almost as brightly as glass. It is that, even more than the chill in the air, that makes this season seem so sharp and brittle here, as though the scene before my eyes might shatter at any moment. The strength of the underlying stone is no match for the delicacy of the winter day.
