Winter Reimagined

There was a time when I loathed midwinter. After the festive and hopeful days of December had passed, I found myself resentful of the dismal, gray days January brought to the table. Seemingly overnight, the blanket of snow would turn from magical to hostile. The once sparkling flakes quickly adopted a grayish-brown hue as they mixed with salt and sand. If the landscape could be described in one word, that word would be “BLAH”. While January felt undeniably bleak, February was even worse! I considered it a throwaway month, barely worth a notice. The Old English name for February was Solmonath, which literally means “mud month”… seemed fitting to me. Winter became something to endure rather than celebrate. Loathing winter felt like a shared pastime, something to rally around with fellow New Englanders. Somehow the collective bad attitude and griping felt justified.

But over the past two years something within me has shifted. It became clear that demonizing seasons was a surefire way to waste precious time. The truth is, seasons aren’t guaranteed for any of us. How many more winters will we be gifted? 50? 25? 10? 1? None? So instead of resisting Father Time and Mother Nature, I started paying closer attention to the Wheel of the Year. It became a personal mission to find the gifts within each season, rather than trying to rush through the parts I didn’t like. Slowly and steadily, I began to reclaim the full calendar year and consequently found beauty at each and every turn.

There’s an honesty about winter that I’ve come to admire. It doesn’t hide behind colorful flowers or a riot of vibrant leaves, it stands in its stark authenticity. It’s not showy or ostentatious, but it’s still breathtaking in its harsh, unforgiving sincerity. If we liken spring to a woman masked in makeup and dripping in silks and jewels, winter is the woman standing barefaced and unadorned, allowing you the gift of laying eyes on her true form. If you glance too quickly, you might miss the beauty standing before you. But if you gaze a little longer, you’ll start falling deeper and deeper in love. You’ll finally be able to see past the illusion and find the truth.

Winter lays bare our fears and forces us to look into the darkest corners of our being. There’s nothing to hide behind in winter, the only recourse is to go within. If you’re brave enough to tread this path, you may discover that winter was never the problem. The problem was in your insistence that winter be something it is not. Winter is not here to warm you. It is not here to distract you with its kaleidoscope of color. It’s not here to shine light on your shadow. Winter arrives to show us our strength and our raw radiance. Winter reminds us that we have what it takes to endure. The depth and the beauty from this perspective is beyond compare.

If you still need convincing to sink into winter, Russell Library has a number of titles to help you on your journey.

Winter Reads:

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Hundred Loves of Juliet by Evelyn Skye

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende

The Little Book of Winter : A Cozy Guide to a Season of Comfort and Happiness by Brittany Viklund

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan