hello winter goodbye

Today felt like the first day of spring; blue skies, bright sun warming the still air. Temperatures reached 67 degrees.
Yet tonight the clocks fall back, and my skin, papery dry for the first time this season, tell me that winter has really arrived.
In just two days though, I escape the brutal northeast winter yet again. I spare myself the spider web patterns that fill with droplets of blood, adorning the delicate skin on my hands as the winter gets harsher. And I return to the mild Mediterranean winter I adore where the coolness that escorts the changing of the leaves here in the northeast u.s. is as cold as it gets over there.
It snowed a few days ago, unusually early snow amidst a week of blue skies and warm weather. It didn't stick, if only to fulfill my longing to see the white stuff... it's been four years, and I admit I miss it.
It is hard to imagine the cold to follow once I leave, and it's hard to understand how people inhabit such a brutal place (still considered mild), and so easy to forget what it's like.