Moonrise Monday night was spectacular. Just past full, the moon lay a shimmering white track across the black water. Long grey shadows stretched across the yard from the bases of trees. The white disk climbed slowly. The track shortened. The shadows moved.

Waking in the early morning, I could tell there were few clouds as the shadow of the house lay clear and sharp on the blanket of snow. Looking west, the bright moon hung just above the trees.

Although I saw the full moon in the morning of the cold, clear weekend nights, I missed moonrise. Dense fog hung over the water. Heavy cloud boiled above it. The moon was there, climbing into the sky, but it was well hidden. The combination of warm water, very cold air, and driving wind created the fog and the clouds.

Normally, I expect nights when the temperature dips to minus twenty to be clear. And over land it was – except where those boiling clouds were driven onto shore. I watched from the border between land and water, clear sky and cloud.

This winter has felt anything but normal. Huge dumps of snow that melted completely away. A week of days above zero. A dusting of snow and no more.

Fortunately, in the week before the polar vortex dipped south, we had snow. There was a good layer covering the ground, protecting the roots of trees and perennial plants. It was not as thick as it should have been in mid-February, but at least it was something, hopefully enough.

And now we are getting rain. Our driveway will turn into a luge run. The blanket of snow will turn to water and run off. It can’t soak into the saturated, frozen soil. The moisture that is usually stored in the snow pack until it is needed in the spring will run away.

Often in the past, I have talked about the cycle of the seasons as reassuring. The movement from fall’s brilliance to winter rest and then to spring’s rebirth has an order that for me speaks of the Creator’s hand. For others, it may not speak of God but a spirit of life.

It is harder for me to feel reassured in a winter like this one, when things don’t feel quite normal.

Maybe that is a good thing. Climate change is real. Sure, January thaws have always been a thing, but scientists are clear that the planet is warming and weather patterns are shifting. My uneasiness about this winter can motivate me to take even more action to lower my carbon output.

I suspect my uneasiness isn’t just because of the strange winter weather. It’s been a year of war in Ukraine. A year! We have inflation and the threat of recession, a big cost to those who were already feeling it hard to get through each month. And there is a constant talk of “crisis.”

The health care crisis is just one example. People say that the current issues were years in the making. Others identify aspects of the culture of medical practice that contribute to the lack of primary care. We all acknowledge that the stress the pandemic put on the system widened the cracks that were already there. It does seem that the talk of “crisis” got the federal and provincial governments to finally talk about change.

Maybe we don’t make systemic changes until we have to. Unless it is urgent, we can turn our backs, close our eyes. We can shrug and say, “it’s just the way it is.” We can let it be somebody else’s problem.

The trouble with that strategy is that when things don’t feel normal, when things don’t work right, anxiety surfaces. And anxiety paralyzes. When things don’t look normal, it’s hard to feel our way forward.

Fortunately, there are people who have been working on ways to lower our carbon footprint. Other people have been trying different models for primary health care; locally, walk-in clinics and the community paramedics help fill that gap. Not everyone waits until disaster hits to make changes.

It’s hard to be flexible when we are under stress. It’s hard to dream when things don’t feel normal. But if we listen, we can hear the signs of hope, the voices that speak of a way forward. Winter will come to an end, and we can influence the shape of spring.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.