Snow Imps

LUND--My friends, convinced I had been possessed by some Nordic snow imp, wanted me back across the Atlantic. Though they professed to missing me a severe blizzard had begun right about the moment I was landing in Cleveland. For the next month of my stay the weather would alternate between more snow and those glittery, bright winter days that belie the deadliness of temperatures that often fell below -10F. All in all it was the second coldest and snowiest Ohio January on record.

When I left, just a few days into February, the snow still hadn't gone away. Still, each day had grown a little warmer and, though winter was far from over, there was the promise that at least for a while the snowpack would melt and the ground and roads return.

When I finally landed in Denmark and traveled onward to Sweden the southern reaches of Norden were dusted with white and gripped in an intensely grey and lightless fog that leached all color and warmth. Lena said that until I arrived it had been a generally bright and sunny winter.

Today is a mix of snow and rain falls from a lightless sky and forms an oddly glue-like mixture underfoot. The trees are black against the featureless sky. The evil snow imp laughs, returned home after spreading its icy fingers in the New World.