I've always wanted to belong. But I've never wanted to be labeled. Oops, caught myself in a lie: there are some labels I wouldn't fight. You know, the ones about a person's good qualities. I realize that always, despite my feeling of being an individual and standing alone, I'm categorized. It's only natural. Makes everything easier. Still, this newest one is hard for me to digest. The idea of being a Snowbird. One of them.

I never heard the term until I moved to Shelburne Falls in the late seventies, and even then paid little attention to it. I was young still; my quest for survival involved another kind of warmth, and my fear of cold involved human interactions. I had just arrived and was entranced by Shelburne Falls.

Across my early years there, it slowly drifted into my consciousness: a Snowbird was a deserter; someone who left the cold of winter and went to Florida. Someone who returned for the glories of Spring, Fall and Summer—but didn't quite deserve them. Yet, as I think back, when I heard someone called a Snowbird, it was often said with affection and acceptance, as well as varying levels of disdain.

The Snowbirds' destination was mostly Florida then. Or were my perceptions—as usual—hazy and incomplete? Maybe for decades, people from the Northeast have headed for Arizona and New Mexico and the sun in a desperate escape from the cold. Or, more accurately, a search for warmth.

I've heard people smilingly refer to themselves as Snowbirds, seemingly without self-denigration. And I've seen those Florida plates in Shelburne Falls come summer. I never dreamed that one day I too would flee in winter, although I've always been cold and yearned for gentle, body-caressing warmth.

Winter can be intimidating, as well as peaceful, cozy, productive. A long string of days with challenging elements beyond my control to change, but mine to experience, integrate and enjoy. And through it all is the constant burden of how to be warm. New England winters years ago drove any idea of fashion from my mind. My first or second winter in Massachusetts, I sat mini-skirted and panty-hosed for the last time ever, in a freezing car on a cold night. There was never any question but that I would thenceforth dress for warmth and comfort. To please myself visually was still urgently compelling, but not as much as being warm.

But lately, it's all harder to endure. Intellectually, I understand. I can feel that it comes with age. I've had years of observing my elders and it all makes sense. Yet I'm shocked to think that I would voluntarily try to excise winter from my life. And saddened. I feel a kind of grief. Wintering is something I've done with everyone else in Western Massachusetts, and I just belonged. It is hard for me to leave friends and the shared sense of place. I fit with winter, never felt cabin-feverish, looked forward to the syrup, and if it snowed, what could I do about it? Sure, driving demanded steady nerves, skill, luck—but upon arrival there was nerve-quivering relief, sometimes ecstasy, utter depletion, or the familiar mix of all.

It is a fact that I have felt depressed by Spring. Snow-white brought me something deeply good. That peaceful cover of white that erases and sharpens details. Spring-love is alive in me, but I need to move into it slowly. That was then?

Now, I'm on this voyage. The point is to find the sun. The warmth. It doesn't matter that this year, there seems to be no escape; we've been dogged by winter storms and cold the whole way. What does matter is that it's dawning on me that I'm dragging this new label with me. Snowbird. A gray-haired woman with a time-etched face emerging from an RV, face raised to the sun, with a man of the same description. Moving toward warmth, but ever conscious of the question, Where is home?

And with all the ups and downs of this mobile life, all the drama and detouring to avoid snow, or stopping and surrendering to it, I think of the old days. The really old ones I read about with horror as a child. The earth was "cold as iron, snow on snow." The winds wild. The food scarce. Young ones to nurture. Stories to tell, to be sure, but they were safely passed down and in the cells of those younger. The gray hairs, the older ones, knowing, rising, leaving the warmth of the group and resolutely walking out into the cold. Into winter's embrace. And the long frozen sleep.

When I think of that story, I picture myself rising, then stretching my wings to fly. With the other Snowbirds.