As the days grow shorter, we bring light into the house to repel the multiple darknesses that lurk there. I raid the cupboards for candles and hang fairy lights in the murkier corners, and I start to retell my own story again, if only to myself. That’s what humans do: we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size. –Katherine May, Wintering
Over the weekend, a friend from junior high and high school messaged me a photo from our junior high’s literary magazine, which I had forgotten even existed. It was a poem I had written, that I won’t inflict on you now, called “The Seasons.” Four stanzas of observations about each season–rhyming, natch.
The message arrived at the perfect time, as all things do (and we only eventually realise): I’ve been dwelling lately on seasonal thoughts as the days here are approaching their shortest and, so far this year, their coldest. Cold weather and the smell of smoke wafting through chimneys triggers a few things within me: increased running stamina, a desire to cook and bake, and the feeling that Christmas is imminent.
Except it’s not, here. Christmas that is. It’s still six months away, but try telling my body–or the Sonos speakers blasting Christmas music–that. So what I’ve decided is to observe the seasonal elements of Christmas this time of year. The spiritual stuff can happen in December, but for now? Bring on the Charlie Brown and mixing bowls.
I remember reading an Australian novel years ago that took place at Christmas, in the height of summer, and wondering how people Down Under could (mentally) survive both a hot Christmas and a cold season without it. To me, Christmas is the saving grace of winter, the thing that keeps the whole season afloat and legitimate, that prevents us all from wandering down to Florida for three months.
Now, I’m finding out how to survive it: by having winter for winter’s sake. Via the aforementioned music and baking. The longer runs and more brilliant sunrises and sunsets. Drinks on a lawn with live music before the sun goes down, and our kids and theirs playing nearby like this is the end scene from Notting Hill. Vivid, the city’s homage to keeping us all sane during the shorter days, lighting up the longer nights. Making soup without sweating into it over the stove. Needing–and sometimes getting–more sleep and realising this need is not necessarily pathological, but rhythmic in origin.
And, apparently, buying a legit wetsuit.
When I went to the surf shop last week, I had no idea that the fitting process would be a cardio session of its own. Strangely enough, this did not happen at Aldi when I bought my last suit. This time, I stretched my body into heretofore undiscovered shapes, feeling like I was stuffing a sausage into its casing and abandoning all modesty when the shop employee asked if I needed help. “Is it supposed to look like this?” I asked her uncertainly, and seemingly asthmatically since I was having trouble breathing, and she confirmed that it was. Huh, I thought. The old one didn’t.
No, the old one didn’t. Another thing it didn’t do? Adhere to my body like a second skin after I stepped into the wintry water. I must have looked like a small child, the wonder on my face growing as I grew more and more submerged, only my feet and hands feeling the cold, then my face as I finally stopped treading water and started swimming in it, farther and faster than before now that I had shed the wrong size and was wearing what actually fits me.