The Spaces In Between

This winter I am learning what cold is, and exactly how many layers are needed to block the wind whipping across fields from nipping at my nose. I am learning that 16 degrees and sunny can feel warmer than 30 and windy and about how it feels as the ground changes from hard to soggy to hard again, ice and mud-cicles crunching under my boots. With Pippin winter means lots of tromping around the woods and fields bundled up, watching my breath rise up around me. I especially appreciate our evening walks, as I love winter sunsets; the oranges and reds reminiscent of the leaves that blazed furiously before they fell. There is something about sunsets against bare branches that make my heart sing.

At night I wonder what might be crackling through the leaves beside the barn: bear, coyote, porcupine, or rabbit, deer, turkey? In the dark everything could be a zombie or a ghost, the playful footsteps of the long-dead children of Joseph Smith, aged 5 and 2, gone for centuries. Their graves lean sideways behind my house.

The damp, cold, windy days are the hardest. When the sky is a blanket of fog and cloud and my down-coat doesn’t quite stop the wind from cutting to my bones. Nose and fingers soon ice. I stay inside on those days and remember the value of curling up on the couch and reading a book. The value of slowing down.

That seems to be the lesson of this year, this winter here. It’s okay to slow down. To say no to all the busy things, yes to reading all afternoon. Yes, to hot soup with friends. Home-made pizza. Needle felting and watching tv as the radiators hiss and thrum. Journal writing with the companionship of a warm candle as snow plows scrape the road outside.

There is a floorboard in my apartment that makes a sound like a little duckling. It didn’t in the summer heat but I think the wood has contracted and now when I step on it I hear peep, peep. I like it. I like the companionship of sounds that come with an old house. The ghosts that tread the hall and the duckling in the floor boards, the hiss of the pipes and the occasional rattle of window, the sigh of tree boughs in the pine tree by my bedroom window. When I leave in June, I will miss this old house with its sloped wood floors, grave stones in the yard, and settling barn that provides shelter to creatures.

I was worried about Winter here (and I know it is only February so I may get sick of it yet) but rather than being something I have had to endure, the cold and snow and ice has at times brought me a startling joy. And I have found a lot of comfort in the rituals of winter, the slower rhythms of this season, the call to rest and settle down and nurture myself.

It also helps that Massachusetts is used to winter, so the roads and sidewalks are cleared quickly, and things don’t come to a full stop when storms roll through or at least not to the degree that they do in Maryland. This isn’t to say that I won’t be glad for spring when it comes, but for now I am happy with winter.