When most people imagine waterfalls, they picture water flowing continuously, creating a mesmerizing sound, and perhaps feel the crisp mist of the water cool their skin in the warm summer air. Perhaps the beauty they imagine, lies in the ever changing shape and flow that the water takes on. But they would be wrong, at least here in the north eastern cities of America. Waterfalls are part of nature, and just like the rest of nature, their beauty cannot be confined to the few aspects we only see for a fraction of the year. Nature is like that. You set yourself out there to experience the beauty she has to offer and she never disappoints, but then when you think you saw all the best she has to offer, she goes and changes.

Living in a tropical fantasy may sound nice to some. Sure, I could give up my Vitamin D that comes in a nice round pill for some more sun, but at what cost? To miss out on the three other seasons I have grown up with. Sure, we may get snowed in and allergies may be a bitch, but I don’t think I would ever be the same without those days of change. There is almost no better feeling than that first glimpse of spring after a long, frigid winter, or the first time you need to pull a sweater over your head after a long, humid summer, or so I thought. And then, I happened upon my first frozen waterfall, and realized just how much beauty remains in between all those metamorphoses.

So if you are sick of the cold, the snow and this winter, I can safely guess that you have not been embracing winter, and merely focusing on the temperature dropping. From the Ice Castles exhibit, frozen solid Lake George and the trickle of the water underneath the frozen exterior of Bash Bish Falls, the beauty I experienced just this last weekend would not be possible without these low temperatures, and even though I have a greater aversion to extreme heat than cold, I do feel the bitter cold, I just know I need to choose, nature or the confines of my home. I could not possibly feel secure in saying that I was a nature lover if our relationship was on again off again. Seriously, no one ever really trusts your resolve when you’re in this type of relationship. So if you fall in love with Mother Nature every summer at the beach, remember, she is there for you all year, and you are the one ghosting her.