We All Have Winters

Sometimes maintaining is enough

I have a theory that August is the month to die.

Perhaps that's slightly dramatic, but by August in Melbourne I have had enough. I've had enough of the dark. Enough of putting on seventeen layers to take the dogs out. Enough of getting excited by one vaguely warm afternoon only to be slapped back into 11 degrees and sideways rain the next day.

Every August I start looking north. Queensland. Northern NSW. Somewhere I can feel my toes. I begin wondering why anyone voluntarily settled this far south and whether moving somewhere warmer for two months of every year would really be that unreasonable.

August feels bleak to me. It is grim.

And perhaps that's partly why I've been thinking again about wintering. Not just the season. The human kind.

The term was popularised by Katherine May in her 2020 book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, with the title borrowed from Sylvia Plath's poem Wintering. May uses wintering to describe the fallow periods that come into all our lives through illness, loss, change, disappointment, transition, or sometimes for no particularly obvious reason at all.

I’ve recently discovered the word “fallow”. I’m considering using it whenever anyone asks what I’ve achieved lately. It means deliberately left unproductive for a while. Finally, a word that makes doing bugger-all sound agricultural and necessary.

I love the idea because we all winter.

Some winters are obvious. Someone dies. A relationship ends. We become unwell. Work changes. Children leave home. Our body changes. Something we thought was certain suddenly isn't.

Others are quieter. Nothing terrible has happened, but the things that normally excite us don't quite have the same pull. We want to be home more. We have less energy for noise, people, plans or striving. We might look perfectly functional from the outside while knowing that something inside us has gone a little underground.

In fact, I have just had a wintering of my own.

I was still working, teaching, seeing people, walking the dogs and doing life. I hadn't disappeared into a cave, although there were days when that had considerable appeal. But inwardly I was quieter. I didn't particularly want to push anything forward. I didn't know what was next, and for once I was trying not to immediately work it out.

This does not come naturally to me.

I'm very good at asking, Right, so what am I going to do about this?

Apparently, sometimes the answer is not much yet.

Annoying.

But this is what I've been learning. To sit in the winter and allow not much to happen. To let the world go on around me, still participating in it, but allowing some of my attention to turn inward.

We aren't particularly good at that.

We're much more comfortable with spring. Spring makes sense. New beginnings, energy, plans, growth. And summer is just fun. It's Aperol Spritz, sunshine, long days and warm nights. Nobody has ever needed to write a book called Summering: How to Cope With Warm Evenings and Drinks Outside.

Winter is harder because it can look like nothing is happening.

And we really don't like nothing happening.

If our motivation drops, we try to get it back. If we're tired, we wonder what's wrong with us. If we don't know what comes next, we think we should work it out. We want movement, preferably forward and ideally with some measurable outcomes.

But we don't look at a bare tree in July and think it has lost its way. We don't dig up a bulb because nothing appears to be happening and give it a motivational talk.

We understand that dormancy has a function.

Humans, however, will absolutely try to be summer trees in August.

Perhaps wintering is simply recognising that our capacity changes and being a little gentler with ourselves when it does.

That doesn't mean disappearing under a doona for three months, although I remain strongly supportive of the doona where appropriate. There are still dogs to walk, people to feed, businesses to run, washing that regenerates overnight and bills that show very little respect for our current season.

It might just mean changing what we expect from ourselves while we're doing all of that.

Maybe movement is a walk rather than a hard workout. Maybe dinner is eggs on toast. Maybe you go home early. Maybe you stop filling every available weekend. Maybe you do what needs doing and leave what doesn't.

Maybe, for a while, maintaining is enough.

Of course, being gentle with ourselves doesn't mean ignoring ourselves. Persistent exhaustion deserves investigation. A significant change in mood deserves attention. Wintering isn't an explanation for everything.

But not every period of less is a problem either.

I think that's what I've been learning in my own winter. I don't always need to know what's next. I don't need to fill every quiet space with a plan. I can keep doing the things that keep me well, eat, sleep, move, see people I love, work, walk the dogs, and allow the rest to be a little quieter.

Spring is beginning to appear now. There are blossoms, the days are getting longer and occasionally Melbourne produces an afternoon warm enough for me to postpone my annual relocation north.

But let's not get carried away with an“and then she bloomed” ending. I haven't become a hydrangea or emerged as a butterfly. It's just September.

Sometimes winter is just winter.

We all have them. Some are long and difficult. Some are quiet and necessary. Some we understand only afterwards.

Perhaps being gentle with ourselves is partly about recognising the season we're actually in rather than constantly demanding a different one.

And maybe, when we find ourselves in one, the question doesn't always need to be How do I get out of this?

Sometimes it can simply be:What do I need while I'm here?