You Need Winter For Summer
On hating the cold weather, grief, and Katherine May's "Wintering"
I’m 11 and and on summer vacation. As we run errands, my mom is forced to drive past my school. In the back seat, I shut my eyes as tight as I can, trying not to let the image of that wretched building cross my mind. If I think about it too much, summer will be over before I know it. It doesn’t matter that it's only July. July will turn into August, and August to September, then October. Suddenly I’ll be back wearing long johns and snow boots and will be far far away from waves that topple me over so hard that I dream of them crashing on my legs.
Every year when winter approaches, there's a collective sense of dread. There's less sun, shortening days into fractions of what they once were. The winter leaves us longing, waiting around for warmer days to return. Both cold and impatient, our conversations surround wanting to fast forward to the summertime. But when are we finding time to rest, restore our bodies, and fully slow down? It’s the winter that allows us to do this. It’s foolish to think that we can get through summer without tending to ourselves in the winter.
The changing of seasons grounds us, allows us to be more participatory in the passage of time. Rejecting winter is a rejection of change. It’s a denial and a grief for a different time; grieving the sun and the stretches of daylight that illuminate our lives. In Katherine May's book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, she describes both the physical sensations attached to the winter, but the changes that have made us accustomed to fearing it. May encourages us to embrace the cold weather, referring to it as the idea of wintering. It's about acknowledging our own shift in mood and learning to move alongside it, instead of fighting it:
That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is a courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.
For years, I’d complained all throughout the east coast winters. I blamed everything on the winter, all of my unhappiness and discomfort, saying that it would never be like this if it was warm. Then, after spending five years in the Caribbean, my winters began to look a lot different. It was harsh heat, humidity, and palm trees. And as much as my hair and skin probably thanked me, I still felt like something was missing. I had been so accustomed to the drastic change of the seasons, that I’d begun to lose track of time. When was it time to rest and repair myself? Was it May or was it actually January? Cold weather signified coziness and hibernation, and instead, I felt like I was just on autopilot. I felt like kicking myself for admitting that I missed being cold, and missed wintering. I’d been trying to fight my own wintering for years, unable to accept change and unhappiness that shape shifts, no matter how many days I spent with my toes in the sand. I thought it was something that could be cured on its own, but nature can only heal so much. I had to face that head on.
We are mammals after all, needing to hibernate, tending to both our body and spirit. May reminds us in her book that plants and animals don't try to fight the winter, nor do they try to carry on living the same way they did in the summer:
They prepare. They adapt… Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but it's crucible… Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It's a time for recuperation, for slow replenishments, for putting your house in order.
The concept of both preparing and adapting is one of the more prominent teachings from May’s book. Instead of a refusal, it’s a reflection: am I nurturing myself in a way to get ready for the next season of my life? Am I looking after my home, both the one I live in physically, and the bodily one I inhabit? Am I facing my thoughts and sifting through the darkness so that I can come back up on the other side? It’s impossible to try bringing the heaviness from the winter into spring, and later, summer. Through coming to peace with our own discomfort and grief, we can face the winter head on, and approach warmer months with a clear mind and spirit.
Winter allows us to sit with the silence, honoring the depth of our emotions and the significance of our loss. We might feel isolated, as though we're the only ones moving through this frozen landscape. Yet, winter reminds us that rest and retreat are essential parts of healing. Like the trees that look barren but are storing energy for spring, this stillness has a purpose. We're allowing ourselves the time and space to feel the fullness of our grief, to understand its shape, and to hold it with compassion.
The idea behind wintering is rooted in coming to terms with these moments of melancholia and understanding that these feelings are so much of what makes us human. It wouldn’t be realistic to think that we don’t get sad, let alone let ourselves feel sad. Winter reminds us to honor this and move through it, onwards and upwards. The winter is what allows us to have the flowers of the spring and the long days of the summer. Life can be so painfully uncertain at times, but we can count on the seasons to lead us through, holding our hands reminding us that we’re still alive.
Needed. Esp because it’s 30 degrees out in nyc and I am in the depths of misery
This writing resonates beautifully with Zen Buddhist teachings. Sit, stay, breathe in the moments, both challenging and not. This is where life exists. Keep writing ❤️