Friendly faces keep me going. The off-season is not everybody’s favorite time of year, but most people who decide to call the Vineyard home year round have a special interest or pastime or even a particular personality type that helps keep the winter doldrums at bay.

I’ve tried scalloping, ice skating, and nature walks, but I tend to spend more time indoors. I prefer warmer weather, so the hot tub helps as a cure for brrr (as does an annual jaunt toward the equator). Each winter I think I’ll read or knit or cook more often, but I’ve realized that the off-season is solitary enough without too many solo pursuits.

I have much more of an appreciation for my fellow winter cohorts, whether they are friends gathering at a home or restaurant for dinner, co-workers affably toiling away in the office, or the people I see out and about – many of whom I don’t even know, yet we often exchange a distinct team-spirit sort of smile. The writers and photographer Lavender crèmebrûlée, prepared by Setzu Zeender, pastry chef at the Sweet LifeCafé in Oak Bluffs. s whose work we so admire also add to the vitality of our daily lives in the office, sometimes adding to our vocabulary in the process. For example, in this magazine, Matt Pelikan used “asymptotically” to describe the progress of Cape Wind in his look at the Island’s notorious winds (“March,” page 46); “interregnum” sent us to the dictionary as Mike Seccombe described seasonal transitions in his ode to April (page 56); “spindrift” and “scud” came up as two names for the spray coming off the waves as seen in a March photo by Wayne Smith.

The highlights from November through April are the people and nature around us. To that end, we decided to delve right in, month by month. Please consider this issue an invitation to experience – firsthand or from afar – the Island’s off-season fraternity.