Winter inside
I don’t know if I’ve already written about this, but winter really gets to me. And it’s not like we have a harsh winter here, not at all. But it is cold, you have to wear many layers of clothes — or at least more than two, which for me already counts as many. It gets dark early, and day doesn’t come until eight in the morning, or half past nine. I leave house in darkness, I walk back in darkness.
I don’t know why, but winter makes everything look so hopeless. It makes the days and weeks stretch out, until it seems they well never end. I look at my calendar, filled to the brim with complicated events, with people, with problems to solve, with things I don’t want to do but somehow agreed to voluntarily — it goes on and on and on, until May, and then it gets better for a while. I look at it and it seems to me that it will be winter until then, and in a way it’s true, because that’s when the really warm days will come — April is treacherous and can still be cold and windy, and even if it is gorgeous, how will I ever notice with all this work?
What if — I just realized this — what if winter is inside me? What if the darkness and cold get to me because I’m growing them, nurturing them, holding on to them? How can I invite more light into my life, even if I can’t find it outside my windows, how can I make it warmer even if I have to wear a coat?
