Some thoughts on Winter
I don’t know about you but I don’t think that I was made for winter. My feet can’t cope with the cold, my shoulders feel permanently hunched over. I feel like I can’t relax for half the year. I think January and February are hard for lots of reasons. Gone are the twinkly lights of Christmas, the frenetic build up which collapses into good intentions for the new year. But who wants to eat healthily and go running when it’s blustery and snowy? The good intentions fizzle out and all that is left is a hollow sense of anti-climax (for me, anyway…)
As a writer/maker, December is a crazy month with lots of commissions and this year, I also had a book that came out so it was all busy and fun. January though, has been a lot quieter. Having just finished a big project, and not yet quite having launched myself into the new one, I am at an in-between time.
I have been thinking lately that much as I hate to admit it, maybe we need winter. We need to stop and recharge, to take stock and to refocus on where we’re going and what we’re doing. The earth needs to rest, and so maybe we do too, it’s our reserve time, a time to gather ideas, energy, and momentum that will give us an even more verdant spring. Here’s a poem I wrote a good few years ago, about this very thing.
Winter poem
The sky has grown white with cold.
Branches scratch across it.
Their strong fingers
once used to holding golden coins,
that would flicker in the light –
are now left spindly and bare,
poking back the frost.
But from this quiet and
deliberate hibernation,
comes the strength in Spring to bud.
And something single-minded and resolute
will push past the black bark,
and through the dark soil
to light.
It’s like that, isn’t it? We just need to keep going, and look after ourselves a little bit until the sun comes. I don’t really have the answers to the winter problem, and I go through this every year, but I know that when spring comes, with its bright greens and warm kisses from the sun, I will feel a surge of creativity, and I love looking forward to the warmer days ahead. Little signs are already appearing, the sound of birdsong, through the strong winds, clusters of snowdrops pushing up through the muddy ground. Spring is not far away. Here are some words from Anne Lamott to keep you going until then:
‘Spring is crazy, being all hope and beauty and glory… In Spring, we expand and stretch in all directions. It’s green exuberance and giddiness, bright clown colours and Easter colours too: the rebirth of the tender growing soul. If we stay where we are, where we’re stuck, where we’re comfortable and safe, we die there… When nothing new can get in, that’s death…New is life.’ (Help, Thanks, Wow)
So, keep going guys, strategize, and dream in January, drink tea and stay cosy. Look after yourselves until Spring comes around.
Some things I have done that have been helpful this winter:
Met up with friends and moaned
Booked a holiday (I’m serious, I need things to look forward to…!)
Read some amazing books
Done things that were out of the ordinary – (when feeling low, all I want to do is stay in and wait until it gets warmer, but a weekend away with family snapped me out of my mood.)
Do something fun – (a friend took me to a gig last night and it was perfect – something new and good even in the gloom).
Some things I have done that have not been helpful this winter:
Met up with friends and moaned
Looked for ‘real’ jobs
Looked for a new house
Spent far too much time on social media wishing I lived in California!
But I don’t know of any other way to get through than to take one day at a time, look for little blessings and just hang on for Spring .
elisabeth pike 