This morning I lay on my couch, wrapped in my favorite blanket, listening to one of my favorite radio programs. It comes on at 7:00 on Sundays -- a time which is only convenient in the winter, and completely inaccessible to me in the summer (I know, I know, there are podcasts but that is a whole different commitment to time management. I listen to things in real time or I just live in real time. Old fashioned.).
The show is On Being, hosted by Krista Tippett. My girlfriends and I are such fans of hers that we once went as a group and sat in the front row when one of her shows was being taped, and then afterwards we all rushed to the stage so we could get a picture with her. This is notable because I have never done that with any other celebrity. I have actually seen her in person three times now. That's probably enough.
Anyway, the show was about Wintering. The guest, Katherine May, wrote a book about her revelations about the value of seasons and cycles, hibernating, reflecting, replenishing. The joys of snow, hitting the pause button, making space for sadness, and not feeling awkward about stopping, even though the rest of the world may be continuing to race along.
Of course you know what I am going to say here. This is something that farmers know. Or at least the farmers that actually have winter -- which is why I am so relieved that we live in a place with true seasons and also one reason I am scared about the steady march of climate change. Farmers do a lot of resting and replenishing during the dark months. This is what makes it possible for us to start the next season with true energy.
But "wintering" doesn't have to happen in January, according to this thinker. She says that it has happened in her life that she knew that she just had to stop and take a real break, one that allowed for all sorts of recuperation. This pandemic has been an occasion of wintering that no one asked for, but here it is. And she says that our culture does not know how to do that.
I think that those of us who expect things to change, expect there to be a winter followed by spring and summer and fall, we have the capacity to endure with less suffering. I am not saying that farmers have exclusive insight, we are just lucky that our work has a natural stopping point. Teachers have seasons too, and it would be really hard for them to keep up that pace all the way around the year. How do all the rest of you manage?
Related to this, my mind wandered to the question of resilience and longevity. Who are the people who have managed to stay sane and keep going for a really long time, in spite of it all? I think of my mother who epitomizes resilience. It's not only that she has continued to be healthy and strong, but she also has a steadiness that allows her to appreciate whatever season she is experiencing. She isn't someone who goes through extreme highs and deep lows -- she rides the train around and around, going up and down the hills. Wintering is part of the ride and she is good at it.
As I consider this, I realize I don't have new thoughts to add to what I heard this morning. It just resonated with me that we are all part of the natural world and there are cycles that we all go through and we need to be better at it. We need to find the good in resting. Last summer we used "sleep" as a prompt for one of our CSA newsletters but I don't think we went far enough in our thinking. We were only talking about the power of rest at the end of the day, as opposed to a really big amount of rest.
Because most people are used to keeping up their productivity and multi-tasking and making money all the time, it would be a big shift for all of us to find ways to winter, and not just take a vacation. It's not about taking a vacation. That can be a lot of work (I can say this because every winter we usually do take a big trip, and that is another form of work, and it is wonderful, but it is not wintering). It's about resting.
And maybe that is why this conversation really struck me. We are resting here, but not perfectly. We are not experts at it but we are getting better. By leaps and bounds, actually. This has been a winter of real wintering.
No comments:
Post a Comment