Around this time of year, I start to get antsy. The cold and the dark conspire to put me into a funk. I lose motivation. The whole world feels like a funeral home on a slow day. I know Christmas is around the corner and I long to celebrate it with friends and family on a steamy beach somewhere.
The light pains me most. There’s not enough of it. The sky feels like it weighs a million pounds. For months, it will be a thick goop of grey sludge spread on top of the world. The golden glow of summer is gone. Everything now is tinged with silver and dull. People hurry indoors. Even noon is dim. I ache for sun and shadows.
Like a terrible guest, night comes early and stays late. The extra hours of darkness set off my claustrophobia like encroaching walls. I want to open my eyes in the morning and see the sun. When I am up before he is, I resent it. Watching him shirk his responsibilities makes it harder to shoulder mine.
Mid-December is the worst. The shortest days of the year are in the next week and a half. I read somewhere that next Tuesday is expected to offer us three and a half minutes of sunlight. It will be the only day of the year you can enjoy both dawn and dusk while eating lunch.
Only by pure grit do I hang on every year until the solstice. Starting in August, I focus my inner gaze upon it, looking for a way to hurry it up. Yelling at it doesn’t help. Neither does asking God to disturb the orbit of the planet purely for my comfort. The solstice is one stubborn gal.
Her faults are, I suppose, made up for by her predictability. The one comfort of this season is the certainty it will end. And it does, every year when the solstice arrives. The calendar says the solstice is the first day of winter. The truth is, it’s the last.
The solstice announces winter’s exile. Even if it takes this mean and bitter season a while to gather her things, even if she throws a fit, her fate is sealed. She is outta here. On the solstice, we turn a corner. Days get longer. In spite of appearances, in spite of snow piled deep before the door, icicles clinging tenaciously to every soggy drain, spring is on her way. Winter can complain, but she can’t do a thing about it. No matter what Winter does from that point forward, Spring will already have begun to marshal her green and tender forces deep in the frozen ground.
Yes, the solstice changes everything, if only we endure ‘til then.
There’s nothing worse than being antsy and then getting in a funk.
So true, Sarah. So True.
That was lovely. I really like “The light pains me most. There’s not enough of it. The sky feels like it weighs a million pounds. For months, it will be a thick goop of grey sludge spread on top of the world.”
Wishing you a ray of sunshine.
Thanks. I need one.
I hate that it gets dark so early!! It can easily make you depressed. That’s why I make myself get out and run!
http://www.runtobefit.wordpress.com
I’m up early to work out myself, but when I’m done, it’s still dark.
I loathe winter. A few years ago I spent Thanksgiving on a beach in Mexico, and it was fabulous!! I have considered making a pilgrimage to the beach each year for Christmas break…. I think I should, and so should you!
http://humanitarikim.wordpress.com/
Oh, trust me. I consider it.
Beautifully written piece! Thank you for sharing…
Thanks, Happy to share.
This was very nice, and I am sure most can agree. Thankfully it is only a short while until we can look forward to more of those beautiful golden rays.
I certainly hope so.
Pingback: Tweets that mention Winter’s Exile « Retrospective -- Topsy.com
12 days from now, its all downhill.
http://dearexgirlfriend.com/
i’m hoping so.
Your writing here is beautiful. I think that winter helps us to appreciate all the more, the other seasons.
Thanks, and you’re right.
Hey, I didn’t know that about next Tuesday, I’m going to research that. Also, winter isn’t the best season for me. I feel like I go into hibernation LOL. I try to do all my work at home and stay indoors because it gets soooooooooo cold. One of the great things now, compared to when I was growing up, though, is that I live in VA (a lot less colder) instead of PA (freezing cold AND snow!!)
Lakia,
That was just a joke about Tuesday.
This was very beautifully written. I agree, I hate the way the darkness seems to take up 75% of every day, giving you a solid three hours of sunlight. It makes me feel like I should go to bed at 6:00 pm.
I do love snow, though; I spent Christmas in Florida a few years ago and it was so depressing to me. It didn’t seem like Christmas at all.
Either way, I hope you get some sunshine!
So do I!
Here’s to the solstice. My friend’s birthday is then and she always laments the shortest day of the year being reserved for her. Yup, gets better after that!
I feel sorry for your friend.
Dean, you have just written exactly how I feel. Thank you. I’m glad i’m not alone in this. And so beautifully and almost poetically written.
Thanks, you are not alone.
Such good writing. Congrats on being freshly pressed.
Hey, thanks. It’s definitely a first.
I feel your pain…I am missing summer so bad and I resent most of all the early darkness. It’s a joke about me with my family & friends that they won’t see me again till the spring. That just might be true. I run to the car in the winter, go to work, run again back in the house, I’m not shopping in that darkness ever. On Saturday or Sunday, if there isn’t blue sky & sunshine well that means I don’t need groceries. The winter affects my life and I don’t like it at all but I did find one thing that has helped me some, booking a winter trip, last year I went to Paris in November and Rome in March 2010, this year I’m going to Paris/Sicily in February 2011. (plus it’s cheaper) That’s the winter bandaid for me.
Great post! Really well written, thank you.
I indentify with this a lot – I too have been feeling ansty, getting into funks and losing motivation! Can’t wait til the solstice. Great post, thanks!
I’m there and sometimes feel like a rabbit peeking out of a borrow looking for high noon’s sun. You must be pretty far north. Your writing is from the heart. Great job!
Wonderfully written post. Winter kills so much and brings so much pain but yet it is here. I try not to complain but in the end what can we do?
Pingback: Winter’s Exile (via Retrospective) | Funny intersting impressional Quotes
Lovely writting. i always enjoy getting lost in someones writting.. being taken out of the winter to get lost in the reading of winter..lol cant wait for more!
Winter seems like such a villain…
I like the silver filter on the world during the colder months, it helps me feel like I’m in one of those old film noirs from the 40′s. Although i miss my mid-afternoon strolls in the summer I more than overly compensate for an evening cup of warm cappuccino, or coffee, or tea, or cocoa (pretty much anything above room temperature…
Don’t stop howling…
OhKami’s Voice
okamisvoice.com
Boy, you nailed this puppy on the head perfectly! I get a pit in my stomach at the end of September. And after solstice, I start counting the minutes that the sun starts it’s rise and each day, the sun takes one minute longer to set. It’s a glimmer that spring is coming.
Beautifully written. Tonight I drove the neighborhood and absorbed the glow of the christmas lights. No vitamin D, but still uplifting.
Thanks for articulating exactly how I feel each winter. And for the hopeful twist you put on the solstice. It IS winter’s exile. Never thought of it that way before…
beautifully written!
I work late shifts on certain days and it just gives me this feeling that nothing can be done after my work because the sun is completely gone. I can’t wait until winter is over, it just is my least favorite time of the year.
Wow, beautifully written. For me, the last vestiges of January are my least favorite parts of winter. I love winter during the holidays: snow makes the scene sparkle. But, as soon as the white twinkle lights of the holidays have faded, the snow becomes biting and cold, no longer a gentle blanket over the area. Somedays, as my head hangs low under a heavy scarf and wool coat, I yearn for the freshness of spring and the sound of melting icicles. Ah, the spring…without winter, we would not cherish the welcome thaw which returns every March…
Your writing is really great! Thanks for sharing and congrats on being Freshly Pressed!
Even though I come from a region where there’re no seasonal changes, I did live through winter whilst living abroad. Hence, I could identify with you. (coincidentally, I also just wrote a post on seasons.) Perhaps winter’s there so that there can be the anticipation of better seasons to come!
AHhhh, yes, I am one of the rare ones who loves the heat and sun more than the cold and cloudy dark days. Just reading this confirmed my thoughts. Great post.
http://lifebehindthemakeupcounter.wordpress.com/
i can feel the chill all the way from the equator all we got here is a cloudy haze with a veil of sunlight little to expect going from sunny to wet i admit i have never seen snow! though the irony isn’t lost on me.
Nicely done.
My kids keep asking me when it will be summer, and it’s hard to break the news that we haven’t even started winter yet!
Only the beginning of deep winter discontent we will get a much heavier does of chills and frills once Jan-Feb comes around.
Wow. I am a huge fan of winter – always have been. But your writing was powerful and I could feel your lament. Glad this was featured, I’m off for a stroll thru your other works. Wishing you sunny dreams with long shadows…until the end of yet another winter season.
Hey, first off, congrats on being FPd. Down here in Sub-Saharan Africa, the sun is relentless (I am not showing off) to the point that droughts constantly ravage our countries. Just yesterday my boss and I were lamenting the unfairness of it all that some of us will never see what a white christmas looks like as long as we are in Africa. We’d do anything for that experience of walking in thick boots in metre high snow. But I wonder what that says about human nature, and that we each do not particularly like what God gave our side of the planet,
I wish I could post you a few rays of sunshine, there is plenty this side. Merry Christmas.
Winter is bleak for you. Summer is scorching for me,-for I live half a world away from you. All the snow I see is in my fridge.
Snowfall, snowman, snow fights, Blizzards, Santa are all exotic to me.One man’s poison is another’s ambrosia.
Thanks for the beautiful prose and the hope it exudes. Yes, Solstice is welcome. It is change away from gloom.
Beautiful post, well constructed, a perfect read. The line about experiencing both dawn and dusk at lunch next Tuesday caught me by surprise and I actually laughed out loud!
Thanks to all of you who’ve commented. I appreciate it.
Happily, where I live in frozen Canada, the sun shines more days than not during the winter. Of course, it rises and sets in a much more southerly location than in summer, and this means it brightens our days for a lot fewer hours. But, and here is the good part, I can see it arriving and departing each day while sitting in the same chair in my living room. And it is usually quite a wonderful show. Not only that, I get to sit in my chair at those two times in the day, because the icy grip of winter has silenced the begging calls of gardens being strangled by weeds and thirsty vegetables wanting some water. The older I get, the more I like winter…
I feel exactly the same. I was devastated when I looked out the window today to see that it was dark, and the time was 4:30… the only solace I have is that everything looks nice when it’s covered in snow, at least it hides the sad leafless trees from autumn.
There are times that i dont read more than two lines but i honestly enjoyed what i read. Cheers !
I know. I really do know. And being in Ireland, the dark winters and bright summers are lengthened even more because of where we sit, latitudily speaking (that’s not even a word…).
Look for the silver lining! Christmas lights always look better after dark. So do roaring fires. And even though the days are short, winter has some of the most spectacular sunrises ever created.
Nice post, my friend.
Thanks, Maryann.
Pingback: The Hook is thankful for everything at Christmas, even Hotel Hell. « You've Been Hooked!
Dean, Dad has sent to me your statements {blog}I love the way you explain how we all feel, but we don’t put it into words like you do, Thank you, I for one really doesn’t like winter, I am a summer and fall kind of person, spring sometimes is even too cool. Loved your letter to Daisy. You need to write a book. I will be first in line if you ever do. Thank you and God bless you and your family.
Thank you very much, Sharon.
Pingback: Tell us how it is, Mavis | So … there I was
Pingback: A Plea « Retrospective