Embrace winter
Pieter Bruegel, The Hunters in the Snow, © Public Domain
Don’t be in such a rush to welcome spring.
For my Ukrainian friends and readers, it’s the start of spring. For most of the rest of us, we’re still about 3 weeks away, with the spring equinox on 20 March.
What’s the hurry?
This aeon.co article, which I turn to for solace once or twice a year, captures it best:
‘Winter, for me, is a period of reflection and regeneration, of withdrawal, reminiscent of a time when humans were forced to be more malleable and responsive to the seasons.’
I can’t say I necessarily love winter. And no, I don’t particularly like snow, especially when living in a city, and especially in a city that does such a lousy job of clearing streets and pavements, and where deadly icicles dangle perilously from the rooftops, waiting to impale those who walk underneath. In short, where public safety is an afterthought.
Never mind that: I like the cosiness of winter. It’s perfect reading weather. You don’t need an excuse to stay indoors and snuggle up with a good book or film, a wintry cocktail, a glass of stout, red wine, coffee, comfort food (stews, pies, sweets) and a roaring fire (nice if we had one). You can wear comfy pajamas all the time and big woolly socks. And it is indeed a time for reflection.
It is also a time for Gemütlichkeit – a fabulous German word, roughly translated as ‘snugness, warmth, the feeling that you are accepted’, according to Nick Hunt, in Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor's Footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn. (longtime readers will know of my affinity for Paddy Leigh Fermor, who at the age of 18 in 1933, set off from Hook of Holland and walked all the way to Istanbul. It took him just over a year.)
And more, from Hunt:
‘My breath poured out like steam from a ventilation shaft, and when I thought of the approaching cold a feeling of sheer lonely delight almost overwhelmed me. ‘Vague speculation thrives in weather like this,’ wrote Paddy. ‘The world is muffled in white, motor-roads and telegraph-poles vanish, a few castles appear in the middle distance; everything slips back hundreds of years.’
It is also, for me, a time of contradictions. For when travelling to a new place, especially a city, I love making my first visit in the winter. I’ve never been to St Petersburg, and I fear I may never get the chance to visit, but I’ve long longed to visit in December, to see it at its very bleakest. There is something so alluring and enchanting about visiting cities in the deepest, darkest frost of winter. The bleakness, the forlornness, the mystery and intrigue and the endless quest for the undiscovered nooks and crannies is one of life’s great pleasures.
Both Fermor, in 1933, and Hunt, in 2011, set off on their adventures at the start of winter, in early December.
I’m afraid I don’t like spring all that much. The weather is so inconsistent. It’s so hard to figure out what to wear since there’s no knowing what each day will bring. Dressing a toddler in the early morning is a nightmare of indecision. There’s pressure to make the most of the nice days, when they arrive. There’s the guilt of staying indoors with copious cups of coffee and yet another book when beautiful spring weather is beckoning me outdoors. There’s wind and rain – and that nasty, spitting rain, not the thunderous, powerful force of nature that I experienced during the rainy season in Nigeria, where I soon grew to love and appreciate the force of a torrid downpour – sandwiched in between occasionally spring-like days. There’s the fact that spring, at least in Ukraine over the past decade, has seemed to just about disappear, and we now have a drawn-out, indecisive winter that can’t quite let go of itself to fully embrace a proper spring and then before you know it…it’s in the high 20s/low 30s and the summer is here. Is there even a spring anymore?
Winter: the weather may be horrid, but it’s fairly predictable, at least the cold part of it. And you can plan for cold all the time. Milder days? A bonus.
Summer: a story for another time. Not as bad as spring, but I have my own personal issues with summer.
Actually, it’s not so much a dislike for summer and a disdain for spring. It’s more of a love for autumn – my favourite season – and a fondness for winter.
As a teacher, autumn is the start of a new year. As a football and American football fan, autumn is the start of a new year. There’s still so much hope in the air. The school year is young. Your team is still alive. The holidays, the festivities, the cosiness and all that comes with it, is right ahead of you.
As the old year ends and the new one arrives, as we say goodbye to the holidays and a return to some semblance of normality (in a, uh, normal year, not one with a pandemic raging, mind), our time for reflection and regeneration has an expiration date. The American football playoffs are in full swing. The weather is so crummy that there’s no need to go out. You can stay at home, in your pajamas, guilt-free. You can eat and drink almost anything you like.
And then…the winter starts to thaw…the American football season is over and in the other football, by this point in the season your team most likely has little hope of winning much of anything, especially if, like me, you support a team floundering in a lower league fighting for yet another season of mid-table mediocrity.
As a teacher, you either love or hate the kids you teach and as spring arrives, one of two things may happen: you hate your class, and are fed up with them, and they hate you, and are fed up with you, and you’ve hit the point where it’s a constant battle of wills, a clashing of heads, and it’s only early spring and you think ‘oh, shit, we’ve still got 3+ months to get through.’ Or you love your class, and you’re already starting to think ‘oh, shit, only 3 or so months left? I don’t want to say goodbye to this group, I can’t bear the thought of it, where has the time gone? I’ll never get a class as cool as this.’
I know people love spring and summer. But surely the reason you love spring and summer so much is because of the stark contrast they provide from autumn and winter? So go ahead and love your springs and summers, but learn to appreciate the beauty and warmth of winter too. Much like attempting to achieve a constant state of happiness, we need to experience the doldrums of doom and gloom to truly embrace and appreciate the euphoria of happiness and summer. It can’t be sunny and chirpy all the time.
‘In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.’ (Albert Camus)
So go on, welcome the spring if you like. But don’t be in such a rush to say goodbye to winter. Because you may, after all, miss it when it’s gone.
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