Embracing this period of "wintering" as we carry on in lockdown.

"Wintering is a season in the cold.  It is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling sidelined or blocked from progress... Yet it is also inevitable" (Katherine May in Wintering)

 

With rare heavy snow last week in our seaside town plus bitterly cold winds, I finally gave into the idea of embracing and enjoying the winter rather than wishing it was over.  The snow gave a magical, lighter quality to these days and I smiled every time I saw the fluffy white covering from my window.  I forgot about the pandemic for much of the week (except trying to socially distance while navigating ice) and took on this new challenge... keeping warm, eking out food until we can make it to a shop, and not slipping over!

As I ventured out into the treacherous conditions, determined to still walk each day for an hour or so, I was finally forced to slow down.  With two walking poles and enough layers of clothing to make it to the North Pole, I managed long walks with only two falls, thankfully ending in bruises but nothing more.  As I walked at the pace of a snail, constantly seeking patches of ground without glassy ice, it made me think about how sometimes we have to adapt to the external changes around us, even if we would rather not.  Just as we can't ignore the snow and ice when it comes, nor can we carry on as normal while the pandemic is still present.

Tucked inside my warm house, while resting my slightly sore and jarred body, was the perfect time to read a book that my partner had bought titled "Wintering" by Katherine May.  Each chapter is a reflection on a different aspect of winter, looking at how the natural world adapts to this dormant season.  She also considers a kind of emotional "wintering" where our lives for some reason may be in a more fallow period.  She wrote this book before such a thing as Covid-19 existed, before we were all living a more limited life and before we were all forced into a kind of emotional and physical wintering.

Wintering, just like the extreme cold, can be uncomfortable.  As many friends share, this third lockdown here in the UK has been the hardest because we have combined the dark, grey and rainy weather with a long lockdown that stopped being novel months ago.  During this lockdown, I feel like I have barely inched forwards but used much of my energy to just manage day-to-day life and uncertainty.  By the end of each week, I wonder what on earth have I done even though I have been busy and completed a whole host of tasks?  Sometimes I yearn for a plan, maybe some kind of career track that is going to force my life back into some recognisable shape that I can share with people?  I have had a number of forays down this path, that usually lead me back to the place where I am now, in a kind of "middle", not sure of the future but everything is kind of okay. 

By reading Wintering, it has reminded me of the power of this more dormant period of the year. Even when it looks like our lives aren't going in a perfectly planned, straight line of success, growth may still be going on in these quieter spaces.  Imagine a fallow field, on the surface looking bare and muddy through these recent months but with a whole host of life within the soil preparing for the spring.  If I were to kindly reflect on my pandemic year with eyes of interest, I would see it full of small gems and moments that I would not have missed for anything.  With my teaching career on-hold and a pandemic forcing me to stay still a little more than normal, it has given more space for branches of growth that I have often longed for.

One of my tucked-away dreams has always been to write more and do something with my writing.  This blog has been only a small step, but it is one that has nourished me every week for nearly eleven months.  Often ideas start to form during my daily walks out in nature where my brain has time to quietly think.  Another dream has been to spend more time outdoors and be a little more adventurous, just as I was back in my teen years when I was always hiking, canoeing or camping.  As I squeeze into my wetsuit ready to plunge into the chilly sea most days, I smile as I have found this part of myself that had got buried under the busyness of life. 

This morning, I received an email showing the front cover of a book that I have contributed to -  an anthology of short stories about growth and love that has managed to flourish in these restrictive pandemic months.  These short stories all support the idea that life can still flourish in the empty spaces away from the normal relentless demands of life.  As the book Wintering describes, life is perhaps more cyclical, with many years or decades of success interspersed with patches of wintering where we may be in a career pause, dealing with health issues, bereavements or trying to live through a pandemic?  

Just as the spring will start to emerge as soon as next week, so will our lives slowly re-emerge into something a little less house-bound.  Knowing the change will come helps me to stay present with the winter that is still here, both emotionally and physically.  I will enjoy my warming hot chocolates, my invigorating cold swims and the homely smell of freshly baked gluten-free bread.  There is no rush, the seasons will change when it is time.  And when I start to moan again about the number of months of lockdown we have now endured, I will also quietly remember the gift of this wintering time in producing some unexpected space and growth.