Can't quite believe in the coming thaw

My relaxing Sunday afternoon was interrupted repeatedly by what sounded like artillery shells exploding on our back deck. This is the longest and snowiest cold stretch we've experienced since we got our new roof in 2021, so we'd never before witnessed what happens when the sun finally warms up the metal roof enough to release all that accumulated ice. Big chunks fell all afternoon, THUNK THUNK THUNK, and every single THUNK made me want to take cover. 

There was no sound at all to herald our power outage early Saturday morning. In fact, it may have been the lack of sound that woke me at 3:30 a.m. to a very quiet, very dark house--a house getting colder by the minute. Thirteen degrees outside and the power stayed off until 8 a.m. but we never learned the reason, only lit a bunch of candles, tried to avoid flushing the toilets (because no power = no well pump = no water), and huddled under the covers to stay warm.

A day that starts with a power outage at 3:30 a.m. is not going to feel normal. All day I felt as if I was trying to catch up with myself, trying to understand something that my brain was too dull to absorb. I looked outside and saw the same snow I'd been seeing all week, snow that could have played a starring role in Robert Frost's poem "Desert Places": A blanker whiteness of benighted snow / With no expression, nothing to express.

The resident woodsman retrieved the data card from our trailcam and I looked through photo after photo of squirrels cavorting in the woods and not much else--a few juncos, a mess of raccoons, a possible rabbit, and finally a few deer, including the big buck we've seen only on the camera, never in person. How do the animals feel about this long, cold winter? I'm sure the birds appreciate the seeds, suet, and peanuts we put out for them, but the other animals seem to be in hiding.

Facebook tells me that at this time last year I posted photos of crocuses blooming on campus, but so far this winter the campus has been covered with nothing but snow and ice. Yesterday, though, the sun stayed out long enough to warm the roof and send ice exploding onto our deck, and today the forecast calls for highs in the 50s. I may just go out and look for crocuses, and if I can't find them today, there's always tomorrow. I feel the thaw in every bone in my body--so why do I still feel the need to huddle under the covers and keep my eyes tightly shut?