There is a quality to the light in late winter that lasts maybe three weeks. The sun is higher than December but still low enough to come through the trees at an angle that turns everything golden for about twenty minutes in the early morning. It does not last. By mid-March the angle changes and the light gets brighter but less interesting.
I walked out last week and caught it. The kind of morning where the air is cold enough to see your breath but the light on the trail is warm. Frost on the ground, gold in the trees. The contrast felt like the forest was holding two seasons at once.
I think late winter is underrated. We rush through it. We complain about the last of the cold, count the days until spring, treat it like the final pages of a book we are ready to finish. But there is something in this in-between time that is worth paying attention to. The world is not quite done being still. The buds are not out yet. The ground is still hard in the mornings. And the light does this thing that it will not do again for another year.
If you have a trail nearby, try walking it in the next week before this light shifts. Early morning is best.
You will not need a jacket for long. The sun is already stronger than it looks.
Walk slowly.
Steven
