Losing the light…
I love the winter! It has always been my favorite time of year, except for recently. For the past few seasons I’ve felt the slog, the dreariness, the near endless dark. Since last winter I’ve been asking myself why. What happened to my beloved season?
Between considerable introspection and some meandering internet searches I’ve landed on three key factors contributing to my winter blues: age, isolation, and screentime.
Age brings some physical and metaphysical changes. Hormone shifts (mostly reductions) result in lower production of vitamin D (a precursor to mood enhancement), which is compounded by the low light. Cold reaches deeper into the body contracting circulation and mobility. And to cap it all time unwinds and is occupied differently than for the young; the light-time speeds across the busy shortened day and personal moments, moments of experiencing life, confront me in the long dark-time like a resentful child I failed to pay attention to and no longer have the energy or will to play with.
Isolation once a welcome peace, like the insulating quiet of snowfall, now rings a stark tone warning of some ominous encroaching void. Not unrelated to age (or screentime) it has become harder to engage with others, meet others, participate in the community, etc. The inclement weather of winter contributes to the resistance and limitations to being with people. It’s hard to get out and go out. But being alone hangs heavy around me, and I’m inclined to escape this feeling, this fear, with distractions that are nothing but bad, destructive habits which further steal my time.
Screentime is unavoidable, and I like it! Everyone knows it by now, too much screentime is bad for you, especially at night before bed. Blue light, yada yada yada. I’m not an avid phone or tablet user, which may sound as though it’s to my benefit, but, no, I am a PC user, a creature of the internet, and a gamer. I use SCREENS. At most I’m only using three moderately sized (but not small) monitors at a time…trust me that’s modest compared to others with similar computer and online proclivities. My work, my hobbies, my down time are enmeshed with screentime. It’s bad for sleep, which is bad for everything else and, like age and isolation, compounded by the dark. Need I say more?
Remembering another story…
These are the big obstacles that only seem to get bigger over time. Yet there is another side, a reservoir to draw from: what did I love about winter in the first place? Was it a temporary gift of youth, a product of a more robust social life or a pre-screen era? I can’t count out that the world has changed both for me and around me. Times are different, and I am different. Nevertheless, I would like try to recapture the magic winter once held for me.
Tapping into that reservoir and remembering another place and time I recall the charm of winters past was built on festivity, refreshing and renewing, coziness (or the frolicking-followed-by-great-food combo), and restful creative solitude.
Festivity arrives with the Christmas season. I don’t have to go looking for it, but I do have to do it right. Celebrations and commercial piggybacking have blown past peak into dystopian. It’s too much stimulation and expectation and imposition. However, it’s only been overdone because there’s something loved and wanted about Christmas and the related seasonal festivities. The festive elements that bring me energy and joy are:
- Music and entertainment (e.g., concerts, performances, movies, particular favorite Christmas song renditions, playing music)
- Baking smells (especially chocolate chip cookies)
- Other particular fragrances (like oranges and pine or fir)
- Houses decorated with Christmas lights
- Gift giving (especially eclectic wrapping paper)
- Being with people I love (should be higher on the list, but as everyone knows sometimes this one has its challenges)
- Christmas breakfast (i.e., the more chill version of the Christmas feast and with coffee)
- Feeling the hope (the answer to Charlie Brown’s question)
For me, it’s a matter of enjoying these festivities in the right measure (not too much and not having to do everything every time, but not too little where I’ve adopted the spirit of the Grinch toward the holiday). It’s also a matter of avoiding the bombardment of too many events, too much spending (often disguised as saving), and enforcement-style traditions and inclusions (leaning too far into obligation). Contemporary Christmas must be done deliberately, with active choosing and knowing what brings energy and what spends energy. Holiday festivities have the potential to spread a little fairy dust across a good half of the dark days of winter.
Refreshing and renewing hops right onto the heels of Christmas with the ringing in of the new year. My mom always takes down the Christmas decorations on the day after. This feels good to me. After the indulgence of the Christmas season, I’m always ready for some space. After the new year most folks engage in a bit of decluttering, intention setting, or planning for the next year. Many years ago I learned from a friend who was initiating me into the feminine right of passage of leg waxing (a practice I have not maintained) that the Japanese have a wonderful tradition of New Year’s Eve cleaning. Instead of waking up on the morning of the new year with a hangover, they welcome the new year with a clean home. It’s a fabulous tradition! I’ve done a version of it a couple times, and I find an emphasis on tidiness and removing or refreshing the old to make way for the new is an important dimension to winter’s remaining short days and long nights.
Coziness is a secret pleasure in the wintery parts of the world that you can’t experience in the same way where it’s often warm (and some would say habitable to human life). It’s a delightful contented feeling of being warm and comfortable while outside conditions are formidable. Think about a lively fireplace, thick socks, sweaters, and blankets while outside the snow drifts down in the street light piling high against the buildings and trees. That’s coziness, and it’s another foreign tradition, this time coming from Scandinavia. Attributed to the Danes and Norse, hygge (pronounced hooga) describes a calm enjoyment of life’s more subdued pleasures, and while not exclusive to winter is certainly enhanced by it. For me a major factor for coziness is feeling restful, and I often cannot feel restful if I haven’t had much activity or gone outside. So my cheesy frame on coziness is the frolicking-followed-by-great-food combo. I mean it pretty literally. I love being outside in winter, feeling the cold and playing in the snow when I get a chance, but there’s a trick to it. It’s not the same as summer sport or even regular outdoor labor and exercise that can be done in warmer lighter seasons. It requires appropriate dress and more deliberate (sometimes slower, sometimes more effortful) movement. Conditions are very cold, slippery, wet, low light, and otherwise hazardous, but often very fun! The key to having fun out there is staying warm and being playful. It doesn’t take as much effort to exert yourself and get in a good workout when you have to stop yourself from sliding or shovel snow or move your bundled up body in some direction. The only way to do it, to enjoy yourself outside in the winter, is to frolic. Any other demeanor is an accident waiting to happen. Just embrace it, be like the deer. Now, after you’ve had your fun, you come inside, and you’re what? Hungry. So take a hot bath or shower. Put on some comfy clothes and eat that hearty thing you most desire: chili, stew, roast, baked seasoned yams, buttered rolls, fried rice and eggs…….fill in the blank. You can have it, you earned it and you’re ready, and it feels great! Savor those too heavy for hot weather, but perfect for staying warm and toasty inside meals. Coziness (or my frolicking-followed-by-great-food combo path to coziness) can remedy almost any low winter mood.
Restful creative solitude is probably the most elusive of the winter joys that I wish to reclaim. This is that winter holiday off from school feeling where there seem to be bountiful unscheduled days ahead when you can sleep in, enjoy a long morning doing whatever interests you most, explore the outside world at leisure, (if you’re lucky enough to have my mom) eat delicious home cooked food, curl up in a blanket, nap, read books, write, stare out the window at the falling snow, pet the cat or the dog, watch movies, annoy your brother…okay getting off topic. This is childhood. It’s not a function of adulthood to have this exact kind of experience, but there is something here worth pursuing. The attitude of curiosity, exploration, and a not quite idol relaxation toward activity and recreation. I’m not a good “vacationer”, but the people who are good at this often describe the kind of experience I’m going for, just ease toward everything and removed of distraction by the day-to-day or future prognosticating. Beyond childhood, I have found winter lends itself to restful creative solitude more than any other time of year, especially in January. Very little (usually) happens in January and this a scenario where the cold climate supports you to stick around closer to home. The winter world calls you to an internal experience. The opportunity for this increasingly rare and precious experience is there in the winter for you to notice and to enjoy.
Looking to the horizon…
The winter season begins for me when I really notice the light is gone – meaning when my workday begins and ends in the dark. At the time I’m writing this, we’re here. We have arrived in North America to my definition of the winter season. My personal goal, and the goal of this blog, is to explore how to find or reclaim the beauty of winter over the 10 weeks spanning the darker days of the year. Starting November 23rd, 2025 I will post a daily blog documenting my strategies, challenges, and observations for uplifting this understated time of year.
I already have lists of ideas to try and topics to explore, and I hope you’ll join me on this 70-day quest into the winter darkness and out the other side.
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