It surprises people when I say that winter is my favorite season, as many find it an act of pure endurance.
Physically, winter is our hardest season here in New England. The days shorten, the temperatures dive, and the outlook ahead includes a long stretch of dark, cold, and ice until early April.
The other seasons do possess their charms. Spring with its eternal hope, Summer with its relentless and excessive abundance, and Autumn with its irrepressible glory of color—these are external seasons, show-off seasons, flaunting their ability to morph in front of us.
Throughout these cycles, we are audience members, enamored with the seductiveness of the seasonal show which, at the end, leaves us with a sense of the coming, inevitable darkness of winter.
The landscape becomes stark, stripped down. Trees are naked in their skeletal form, the corpses of flora lay about our feet, the animals are bent on survival. All this is an undeniable reminder of the losses we’ve all experienced, be it loss of loved ones, loss of the innocence and wonder of the holidays, loss of tender dreams, or the loss of the denial of our own dreaded mortality. Winter seeps inside us and seems to have a knowing about our inner life that other seasons do not possess.
I find solace in winter, the season that makes me slow down and spend more time inside. I want to match my internal pace to the outer world, spend time in reflection and contemplation, and absorb the stillness that the natural world reveals. It is a time to tend to my inner life and my inner world.
Winter is a season that strengthens me, opens up my external and internal horizons, provides an opportunity for clarifying reflection on what’s important in my life, helps me savor the sweetness, and nudges me to not be afraid to look death in the eye.
You may not experience the season this way, but there are still ways to make winter enjoyable and less of a burden.
1/ Look for subtle shades and surprising pops of brightness in nature.