“You can’t get too much winter in the winter,” wrote Robert Frost.<\/p>\n
Call me crazy, but I agree with him. I love winter walks, and the snowier, the better.<\/p>\n
I know what you\u2019re going to say. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t make that statement if you lived in Buffalo, New York or Truckee, California.\u201d And, of course, you would be right. But for this Texas Panhandle guy who only gets a white Christmas about every third year, I long for the snow, and I get out and walk in it when it falls.<\/p>\n
By the way, Annabel Streets says walking in moderately cold weather is good for us. It produces \u201cbrown fat\u201d (brown adipose tissue) which \u201cexists to keep us warm and breathing\u2014increasing our metabolism, regulating our appetite, improving our insulin sensitivity and halting the premature death of our cells.\u201d<\/p>\n
All that sounds good, but I don\u2019t walk in the snow for my body.<\/p>\n
I do it for my spirit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSleigh bells ring, are you listening?\u201d
\nIn the lane, snow is glistening.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m guessing your spirit soars as done mine when you hear \u201cWinter Wonderland.\u201d<\/p>\n
And notice that in spite of the reference to a sleigh (I think we all envision a horse and harness), the protagonist in the song\u2014who is \u201chappy tonight\u201d at the \u201cbeautiful sight\u201d\u2014is walking<\/em> not riding<\/em> in the winter wonderland.<\/p>\n *By the way, the lyrics to Winter Wonderland were written by Richard Bernhard Smith in 1934. In 1947 they were altered to make it more of a children\u2019s song than a romantic one. \u201cParson Brown\u201d became \u201ccircus clown,\u201d and they added a line about playing in the snow \u201cthe Eskimo way.\u201d Over 200 artists have performed the piece. My favorites\u2014Perry Como, Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett. Least favorite\u2014Elvis.<\/p>\n ** This blog begins a four-part series about walking in all the seasons. However, I\u2019m going to take a break from writing over the Christmas holidays. So I\u2019ll see you in the opening days of January when my thoughts will turn to walking in the spring. Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “You can’t get too much winter in the winter,” wrote Robert Frost. Call me crazy, but I agree with him. I love winter walks, and the snowier, the better. I know what you\u2019re going to say. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t make that statement if you lived in Buffalo, New York or Truckee, California.\u201d And, of course, you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3441,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions\/3441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}