Wintering

Wintering was a verb introduced to me by author Katherine May. Prior to reading May’s work, my verb for winter was “hating winter.” As a midwesterner, I enjoy four definite seasons. However, winter is my least favorite and often a time of heaviness in my soul. Thanks to May’s book Wintering, I’m doing it differently this year. Here are some of her words:

“When I started to feel the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favored child, with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed, and I made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself, what is this winter all about? I asked myself, what change is coming?”

Instead of fighting winter, this year I’m enjoying it. I’m watching nature which I had previously thought of as “winter dead,” be in a season of rest, not death. I’m seeing the bare trees as an invitation into rest, not a depressed sense of gloom. I’m enjoying weekends cuddling with my favorite blankets, people, and dogs on the couch. I’m doing puzzles with a cup of hot tea and an audiobook playing in the background. Prior winters were a time of expecting myself to be organizing closets, taking on new work projects, and accomplishing things. This winter, is about recovering from the busy year and resetting before spring, when I love to come alive again.

I hope you will think about loving yourself through your wintering months. Katherine May describes wintering as time when it might actually be summer but you are in a season of grief. These are times where we feel isolated and alone. Wintering is a time of being really gentle with ourselves before we go out into the world again. This is one of my favorite paragraphs in her book:

“Sometimes the best response to our howls of anguish is the honest one. We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while, while we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on. That sometimes everything breaks. Short of that, we need to perform those functions for ourselves: to give ourselves a break when we need it and to be kind, to find our own grit in our own time."

You might go back and read that again, it is so beautiful. One, we need people in our lives with whom we can be real. Two, in addition to that we must be loving to ourselves. Those two things - compassionate friends and self-compassion - make being human so much easier.

I hope you are wintering well this year wherever you are. If you live in a hot climate, your version of wintering might be in July and August when you stay near air conditioning and so slower. Or wintering may come when we least expect it with grief or disruption to our plans. Whenever it is, go gentle with yourself while the days are darker. Spring will always return.

Sending you my cozy wintering love,