It has been a long time since I've had any use for snow other than writing about it. But the cold we’ve been having is far worse than snow. If you have to be outside, and we all do, some of us more than others, you can’t get away from it. You can wear five layers, waterproof gloves and the crucial hat to keep in your body heat, but Mother Nature blows a breeze your way and instantly you feel you have been painted with ice. No thank you.

However, here we all are, encased in it, this unacceptable degree of cold, each time we step outside. It does not deserve awe as a wonder of nature. It is an enemy to our wellness. And cast aside the popular notion to keep one’s enemies close. It doesn’t work. Something that is against you will still be against you, and if this slow-motion cold snap was a person, it would just respect you less for trying to befriend it.

So, cold, I don’t like you and I’m not going to pretend it’s OK. You need to leave, take the next bus out. And in the meantime, because we have seen how stubborn you are, we will go about our business, and hurt doing it, but you will not stop us. We are Mainers, our scarf-covered chins are up – except when we carefully watch our steps in parking lots and elsewhere for ice patches – and we know we can outlast you. We have beaten the extreme before, including ice storms, the Patriot’s Day Nor’easter and the last living nightmare before you, October’s windstorm.

So you go away, deathly cold, winter will be fine without you. Thursday, Jan. 4 marks 74 days until spring and 167 until summer. And what a welcome spring and glorious summer they will be.