January 12th – Winter’s Lessons

Outside my window I see a still neighborhood getting pounded by a second snowstorm in a week. I tried taking my St. Bernard out for our morning walk today and even he, a dog bred for braving Swiss Alp mountain passes, demanded we turn around upon reaching the end of our neighbor’s property. I was struck by the quiet I was immersed in. Aside from the howling wind all was silent. No birds, no dogs barking, none of the usual traffic from the typically bustling Maple Street. Just the sipping winds blasting Tiny and I in the face.

We turned around and trudged through the drifts back to our home. Some drifts reached my knees and Tiny’s armpits. I have never seen that dog run up our front steps so quickly. Inside, it was even more still, the sound of the wind dulled by the walls of shelter, and their blasts of cold defeated by the furnace, whose roaring was the only sound inside.

Winter is my least favorite season. I’m a spring fan. A season of rebirth, of sweet smells and love connections. A season to stretch our limbs in the sun and shake off the cobwebs a long winter on the Great Plains brought. A season when I no longer ask “Why do I live here?” I take many lessons from the dumping snow and bitter winters, and I”m amused each year when I realize I’d forgotten them during the long summer and fall.

The lessons: Rest is okay. Take a breather. Wear layers for protection, you don’t need to be out all the time to be happy. Sometimes good things leave, but the good comes around again. Extra cold winters with blankets of inconvenient snow provide moisture to the soil, which nurtures the wildflower garden, which provides fresh daisies for my kitchen table, which act as models for painting, which gets the built-up emotional cobwebs out, which makes me feel like a perfect spring day.

Life is cycles. All is temporary. Even the feelings and memories that feel foreboding aren’t permanent. With a little compassion and distraction they’ll dissolve into the ether just like that relationship that ended.

I don’t love the winter but I don’t begrudge it. Most of my life I’ve sought out external things to ease the discomfort of mental anguish, the steady onslaught of anxiety and depression. Days like these the easy choice is to stay home with myself because if I want to go anywhere I’ll have to shovel heaps of snow. I’ve learned that I can quiet my personal storms. Life can rage externally and inside I am the buddha under the tree, I am the waters of a mountain lake – crisp, cool, calm.

Winter reminds me of isolation, which is my tendency when the mental weather gets tough. However, living alone these last two winters has shown me the endurance within, that I am strong. This winter I’ve remained sober – my main comforts no longer drinking or smoking, but dog cuddles, yoga, baking banana bread and practicing art.

In the warm months I practice community. I practice socialization, sports, etc. In the winter I practice being. Settling, standing still.

I think the winter’s main lesson is patience, and grounding in the present. Of course I want to be out biking, at a lake, drinking in the street, standing outside comedy clubs, but those options aren’t (safely) available right now. So I make due. I ground, I tend to my roots so that I may bloom in a few months.

I have been out of work for over a year and half. The opportunity to get part time work or *actually* try for something full time has been there, but I”ve waited to be active about it. WHY? The first answer is healing. Every professional position I’ve held I’ve left as a tightly wound ball of anxiety, barely able to function. They were all jobs I took because they were the first offers I got. I was following the advice of my parents’ scarcity mindset. It’s not their fault, they didn’t know any better. They came from a different era – my dad worked for the same company for 30 plus years and retired at 56 with a monthly pension that pays him more than I”ve ever made at any job. It made sense to stay through the monotony and soul-crushingness of a nine-to-five. When I graduated college a couple years after the Great Financial Crisis those opportunities weren’t there. You could get an employer that matched your contribution to a 401k, but they’ll take it back if you don’t stay five years. It was a cage, a cage with the promise of a little money, but the cage was a no frills cage bought from the dollar store and there was nobody who cared enough to clean the shit from the bottom of the cage. You just stayed in and shut up.

I hate working for other people. I’m told everyone feels that way. I’m not so sure.

Anyways, I’ve waited to get a job. I have an interview next week for a job I’m not excited about – a full-time event production gig. Low pay, a ton of hours, yippee. Yesterday I got an offer for a part-time job in a costume shop. Twenty hours a week for even lower pay, but it’s flexible and interesting at least.

I think I’m in my professional winter. I have practiced my artistic skills for years, I’m a nationally touring improviser, I am ripening on the tree. I am waiting to be plucked, to be bit into, for someone to enjoy my crispy juiciness. I’m learning that I’m an apple that can grow arms. I will pluck myself and spread my juiciness on my own. Turn myself into apple juice – tasty, refreshing, might make you have to shit if you have too much. What I’m trying to say is that I’m feeling inspired to pursue publishing, to go after something that feels like a sunny spring day. People reading my words, seeing the brightly colored petals of my flowers unaware of the long winter that got me there.