Every winter, it’s harder for me to feel present and acutely appreciative of my surroundings than in the summer, when a blend of sunscreen, hot pavement, fresh-cut grass and coneflower seems to perfume everything, I don’t have to layer leggings under my jeans and the sun is gracious enough to stay out past 5 p.m.. In the summer I might be moved by a few bikes piled haphazardly outside a candy shop, the door suspended in a soft close, the gleaming sign in the window flashing “Open!” in cursive. I might see this as a sweet portrait of suburban boyhood – juvenile excitement fossilized. I think if I came across this same scene in the winter, I’d probably wonder what kids were doing out in the snow and why they hadn’t locked up their bikes. My perspective would be embittered, not softened, as it easily is in the warmer months.
In winter, our bodies are without natural cues like sunlight, and increased fatigue disrupts our internal clocks. I liken the version of myself that exists between November and March to a concaving perennial or a bear that’s being kept from hibernation. And this winter seems particularly tough: Israel’s war on Gaza has been raging since October, the U.S. is gearing up for another nerve-racking primary election and the recent incident in Kansas City marks the country’s 48th mass shooting since the start of the year. A friend told me recently that she feels like we’re all trying, as we have been since the beginning of the pandemic, to return to a normal that will never exist. The desensitization and perpetual burn out that seems to be plaguing young people right now is certainly not remedied by the gloom of winter months.
This time of year, it’s beneficial – no, necessary – for me to make space for gratitude and grace. When I am particularly distraught over the state of the world, or my world, I try to remember what I know hope to be: something deathless and pervasive. Something sometimes-hard-to-find but never absent, not entirely. “The thing with feathers,” as Emily Dickinson would say. To preserve it, I always try (though I don’t always succeed) to wake up at least two hours before I have to leave the apartment. I stretch and take my vitamins. I turn on my light therapy lamp, read something (whether for leisure or for class) and make my Green Mountain coffee with caramel creamer. I shuffle songs by an artist who reminds me of what it means to be hopeful: Kacey Musgraves or Dolly Parton or Brandi Carlile. I relish in the stillness of the day’s anticipation.
If it happens to be sunny outside, I snap a photo to send to my mother, whose condition, I’m sure, couldn’t be much different 60 miles south. We share in the adoration of bright days in winter and talk often about moving to Arizona someday. Until then, we’ll have to be hopeful about the possibility of residing somewhere warmer.
This semester I feel lucky because I’m taking so many English and journalism classes, so I get to spend most days reading, writing and listening to what my peers share. I leave, never in time to catch the sunset, but feeling a little more hopeful about humanity because I’m surrounded by people who care enough to represent it compassionately and thoughtfully. The ways in which they see the world makes the dark journey home feel light somehow.
I find myself this winter without many of the people who held significant space in my life six months or a year ago: coworkers, friends studying abroad or friends who moved home. I sometimes feel their absences collecting weight at my life’s center, and when this happens, I call. Or, I text to figure out a good time to call. Sometimes I write letters or read ones they’ve given me. I prefer to do this at the bridge overlooking Varsity Lake so that I can people-watch and savor the small body of water’s grounding force, but in the winter that’s sometimes not feasible. Still, at my desk in my bedroom with these emblems of love spread out before me, I’m hopeful.
The mentors and elder friends in my life I seek this time of year all say to me that periods of depletion or despair are not end times. If anything, these months allow the seasons that harbor meaning and beauty to shine brighter. It cycles. So while we can’t fast-forward through darkness, we can hold out lanterns for one another until the sun returns.