Ode to Winter

 Ode to Winter

I have tried and tried to make autumn my friend. To love her orange leaves and misty mornings, to embrace change and let go of what has passed. I can’t help but feel that autumn is an ending. If I could, I would gather up all the fallen leaves and stick them back on to bare branches. Because autumn will give way to winter, and every time winter arrives I fear it will be for ever. Perpetual darkness, a cold that runs to the core, a heavy absence. Days slipping away, colour lost, a suffocating sun and a body, this body, helpless against existence in the dark. 

Winter has always happened to me. With a child’s voice I have stamped my foot and wailed, I don’t want the cold and the dark, this is not fair. But every year night conquers day and there is nothing I can do. With the eyes of a child I stand on my tiptoes to watch the sun set over the tops of houses, from my parents’ bedroom window. How far away is it now? Are there places over there which still have light? If only I could get there, see the orange hidden just over the houses, if only I were taller. 

In these months, there are days when I wake up and light has already passed. I chase the moon, sleeping daylight away, living by the light of the stars and candle flames that die. On days when I wake up in the dark I make-believe and do not pull my curtains closed because I cannot bear that it is already over, going against reality to claw at some kind of agency. But the open window lets the cold in and it fills my room. In the past, I have had to defrost photographs, shake the ice off white bedding, wring out a jumper or two and kick down my frozen door. Believe me when I tell you it is a nightmare to hairdryer each page of a novel back to life, to try and empty old mugs of ice, to sleep in a bed soaked through with winter. The pages of my diary become sodden and their ink runs and forms black puddles over this vinyl floor. Words melt together and become confused, it all blurs and as the outside comes in I find that I am lost in thoughts that were once solid and real, but are now dizzying in their deformity.

When I cannot close the curtains or the window, spiders come in from the cold. I catch them and set them free, knowing they will die, but unable to bear another living being in here. There is no more room, not enough oxygen, no space to be, and nothing to give. If one of us has to die, I pray it will not be me. Like a coward, these hands cannot kill. I trap the things in clear glasses, watch them with eyes afraid, and carry them to their double-glazed graves. Scared of being invaded, I release the little lives back outside, giving them back to nature who will do my bidding for me.

I am learning that these four walls, and this body, are mine. Perhaps this time when winter comes,  I will accept the night and close the curtains. Perhaps I will shut the window and light a candle. Maybe then there will be no ink on the floor, no spiders to kill.

It is possible that when winter visits me in my oldest year, it will not invade. With eyes that have seen, I understand that winter’s hand does not smother, but offers shelter. Forced inward, there is no clearer time in which to establish an internal in opposition to the external. There would be no inside if there was no outside, no window to close. Instead of dying, I will hibernate. Quietly inward, warm and protected, a defiant living. Lying on my side, touching knees to elbows and a neck gently rounded to keep the head safe, this body becomes whole. It forms a self-contained sphere and creates its first inside-outside binary. Enclosing the being in the body, I hope that the two will come to know each other.

Inside this private world, there is so much warmth. There are books and songs that have anchored themselves, women who mean everything; who love and understand, memories which pain and ones that don’t. There is feeling and the knowledge of growth, acceptance and a quiet want for life. There is the little girl with arms wrapped around her, held tight in the darkness and allowed to sleep (she has been tired for ever). In here, we may find forgiveness and sleeping hands may unclench to release ties that bind. Winter asks for nothing, and there is kindness in the cold and protection in the dark. In gentle survival, I might rest.

A visual board for the season can be found here.