...chestnuts nipping at your nose...
That’s not how the song goes? Dear me…how
embarrassing!
Be that as it may, winter is hurtling toward us with
icy wings outspread to engulf the world—or something equally dramatic. Days are
shortening (in the Northern Hemisphere at least), and I am beginning to
remember why it is that winter gets to me after a while. Sure, I like autumn; I
love the colored leaves and the scented air and the tempered chill. But then
snow falls. Fortunately, I haven’t had to shovel yet this season, but my body
knows that, sooner or later, this will change. I get sore just thinking about
it. Even with the overhead lights on and seemingly every lamp in the house
glowing without the dimming hand of their proper shades, the shadows still
gather in looming squadrons at the corners of my vision, about the edges of the
room where even the lamps’ cold gleam can’t reach. At times like these, I
wonder why I claim to love both autumn and winter. What’s wrong with summer?
Isn’t spring really the most delightful season of all? (It almost is.) What on
earth led my addled mind to believe I actually enjoy the cold drudgery and the weary
days when even coffee takes no toll on the sluggish highway of my thoughts?
Without fail, I always forget how gross winter can be.
I lose sight of the long hours scooping, lifting, shifting snow, only for it to
fall anew. The process feels meaningless. I move frozen water, and it melts.
All that work for seemingly nothing, since in the long run, what have I really
gained? Come winter’s end, I have no lasting souvenir of all those sweaty hours
torturing my arms and back as plow trucks rev their engines and squeal out of
the intersection as if that will impress me. Dude, if you really want to
impress me, get out and help me shovel! But I digress.
Like drudgery and misery, pain fades quickly. On
Sunday, for instance, I ripped off the tip of my toe—fortunately not to the
bone—and already that’s ancient history (which says nothing about my attention
span). Looking back, I can’t honestly recall how much it hurt, though I know it
did. Another example—after writing and rewriting last November’s project about
a quarter million times, I set the work aside, spent the summer lollygagging,
and promptly forgot how much effort I’d put into it. Now, my head knows it was
a boatload of blood, sweat, and tears, but my emotions are in denial. So here I
am, typing away, feeling as though my completed book were simply handed to me,
as though it were merely dropped into my lap, as though I didn’t actually work
for it as much as I should have. Stuff and nonsense.
Back to winter. Of course I remember the wonderful
details: the warm fuzzy feelings, the
pleasant moments, the tantalizing smells. I tend to block the other times, the
ones with tears and tissues and torment. So reviewing my life is like watching
reruns of my favorite show through a nostalgia filter. It is idealized and inaccurate.
Still, I wonder if that’s a measure of how we cope, if we’re meant to magnify
the good times, within reason, and to lose sight of the days that ached. Just
think—if the weight of every dreary winter stuck with me always, I believe I
would soon learn to dread the changing of the seasons. Instead I take delight,
though each year I learn anew. But alongside this painful rediscovery rests the
compilation of nostalgia from all my previous experiences. That outshines the
sorrow of winter and dying.
Every season is bursting with memories and happy
ghosts, moments pressed between the pages of my history to rustle and breathe
anew when the wind catches them just right. And winter is wind like no other. I
am haunted by a thousand snapshots of icy-tipped noses above steaming hot
chocolate with the sticky red of a candy cane pressed between cherry fingers. I
seem to hear, even now, voices layered over each other, past choruses joining
with present in ethereal harmony. Nameless nostalgic tremors seize my spine,
whispers of memories filed too deeply for my grasp, but there and comforting
just the same.
Some seasons trap glowing moments better than
others—at least, I find it so. Spring is spectacular, and summer has portfolios
of its own, but autumn and winter combined are the true archives. Perhaps that
is because more events are crammed between their covers than in the other half
of the year. Last NaNoWriMo (I can’t help but smile in recollection), I wrote a
book. Since then, I’ve polished it to my satisfaction. This year, I finished
three books and two partials, and now I have my editing cut out for me, which
is by far my favorite part of the process. I can’t tell you how many wonderful
feelings come from that alone. Then Thanksgiving rolls along with family, food,
and fun new adventures. Christmas follows, and do I even need to elaborate? After
that shines New Year’s Day, which has the added gloss of being my birthday. So
I wonder if spring and summer are merely the seasons of recovery meant to
prevent autumn and winter from growing old.
That’s one issue I’ve been struggling to learn, but don’t
worry, because I’ll eventually forget how difficult it was. You cannot have
good moments without bad; you cannot have highs without lows; dawn would mean
nothing without night. For every stellar writing day, I have five lesser ones.
That’s life. And trying to seize the same enjoyment every time is as pointless
and harmful as trying to lift a semi. I would strain something. Consider: if I ate ice cream every night, aside from
getting fat, I would also get bored. Ice cream would stop being special, because
I would soon take it for granted. But if I tasted ice cream infrequently, not
even once a month, it would always be new—it would always be a highlight.
So this season, I’m trying to remember that nostalgia
comes with patience and, like cheddar, it’s better aged. Happy moments aren’t
fluttering birds to be caught—they are gifts dropped unexpected on our
doorsteps. If I rush headlong into the holidays with the goal of accruing as
many fuzzy feelings as I can, I wonder if I’ll end up disappointed. And I don’t
want to wear myself out chasing something that wasn’t meant to be manufactured like
that. What I am going to do is enjoy this season for what it is and what new
treasures I will chance to stumble upon, knowing that retrospect will lend me
the honeyed glow I crave.
I’m also going to buy seven floodlights and a lamp.
Winter, beware.
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