“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
~Edith Sitwell
After writing about the flight behavior and migration of monarch butterflies last week, I was interested to read in Saturday’s paper the following from Jim Gilbert, a naturalist and author whose words always peak my imagination: Winter strategies for Minnesota’s native species include migration, coping and hibernation. He goes on to describe in detail what happens to animals whose makeup includes the act of ‘sleeping’ through the winter. Heart rates slow to almost nothing. Blood flow slows to a crawl. Breathing becomes almost undetectable.
This morning the temperature tells us there is no turning back. Winter is here. It is time to decide on some ‘strategies’ for making our way through icy winds, freezing temperatures, and dark and cloudy days. For most of us, while some long naps might be in order,hibernation is not an option. Too much heart slowing and little breathing seems a terrifying option! And so we are forced to look at other ways of living into these winter days.
Of course, there is always ‘coping’ as Gilbert suggests. We will all do this in some ways but I believe there is greater gift in these days that simply coping. There is also the option of migrating. I know many people who now make their way to warmer climes and live a double life of north and south. They pick up what is important to them here and carry it to another place, a warmer, sunnier place, where they have incorporated the gifts of what they love in a kinder, gentler climate. Those who are blessed with certain resources may even adopt this migratory behavior for a least a week, say, sometime in February when the work of coping is fraying nerves and spirits.
But I would like to suggest that there are many other strategies for living in winter that go far beyond the act of coping. I know people who have once again picked up yarn and needles and are settled into a cozy chair waiting to knit their way through winter. Others are tackling that large stack of books that accumulated in the ‘to-be-read’ pile. What can be more comforting than a good book on a cold day? Some I know are pulling out that art project they have been dreaming about all summer when the weather was too warm and seduced them to be outside. And, of course, the foodies are planning soups and breads and sweets that will nurture the tingling cheeks and frost fingers of those they love.
Those of us who love to write are making lists of ideas for stories or poems. Some may even be tackling a first stab at a novel or a recommitment to memoir. There is something about the colder temperatures, the darker skies that can stir up the creative muse for writers. Thoughts spin more freely in a brain whose body home is numbed by cold. Words seem to form out of the visible breath that surrounds the head like a comic strip conversation bubble.
The seasons we are blessed to live are gift of the Great Artist and call to the artist in all of us. Migrate? Hibernate? Cope? It seems there are so many strategies for wintering.
What are yours?
