The silent treatment.

That's what Old Man Winter's giving us.

Maybe he's rethinking life, holed up in some northerly camp wondering if he really should go back to school and study medicine, like he always wanted to.

Or maybe he's tired of our fly-by-season love affair with snow - the sort of flighty romance that sours before the three-month anniversary. Maybe this year, Winter simply bailed before we had the chance to.

He'll show us, he probably wrote in his journal one late January night, tipping back the last of an $8 bottle of red. And he has. Sort of.

His absence has been felt. Folks seeking snow need to travel in or up from Portland, the seasons turning abruptly from spring to winter as they drive.

But winter antics have ceased in Southern Maine. Portland's WinteRush rushed quickly into thin air. The Snowman Adventure stayed home and Old Orchard Beach's Winter Fest was...well, it was like throwing a 90th birthday party for sweet Aunt Carol, complete with large-font greeting cards and ease-to-maw soft serve ice cream, and finding sweet Aunt Carol had shunned your festive efforts to attend an embroidery seminar in Washington D.C. instead.

Sure, we could be insulted. But we're not. Instead, we sled down what snow we can find or truck in...

and where's there's no snow, we make do with sand...

while winter's remnants make a break for the sea.

Old Man Winter can't stay away forever, though whether his return will be in March or December, I couldn't say. But he likes us, despite our winter groveling and despite the fact that we don't appreciate him enough when he's here. And besides, the arctic gets lonely. He's eventually going to want someone to talk to.