dead of winter

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This is the hardest time of year for me, biologically.

Morning comes so slowly. It's almost 6:30am, and there's only the faintest blush of sunrise in the sky. It'll be more than an hour, before the sun's really up.

And the cold! Even in a heated house, my feet and hands are stiff with cold. It hurts to walk; it hurts to grasp things. I have to wait for warmth, so I can work.

Evening comes too quickly now. I have to plan to come in early enough, so I won't be stuck outside in cold and dark.

And it starts getting too cold by 3pm, which is normally the warmest time of any day.

This house is large enough that I don't, at least, get my normal cabin fever. Most places I've lived are so small, I have every inch memorized and feel so shut in, so trapped, so confined.

I feel myself waiting for Solstice. I feel myself waiting for The Longest Night to pass. I feel myself enduring the dark and the cold, waiting for it to be over, waiting to be on the other side, climbing slowly back to light and warmth.

I stand outside at night, bundled but still shivering. I look at the sharp stars, blink the cold from my eyes. I feel how thin is the membrane between us and Deep Space, eternal night, eternal cold.

It's in the dead of winter that I feel most that we're on a planet, dependent on a mote of cosmic dust.

Winter makes me realize how fragile we all are.

Fragrant soups, creamy mugs of cocoa, fuzzy slippers, thick socks... these all give some comfort, some cheer to the existential nightmare of floating on a ball of dirt in nothingness.

But, just outside the sparkling windows and amber lights, the Universe looms over us. It is Kali: mother destroyer, killer and bringer of life.

I feel like a mouse, burrowed in fur and grass straw, huddled in my tiny hole as wolves howl outside, shivering and silent.

I know it will pass.

Yet, every year, it surprises me: so brutal, yet indifferent, yet beautiful. I admire and fear deep winter.

I'll shuffle out to take little peeks at it, acutely knowing how easily it can kill me. I'll shiver my way back inside, glad for heat and light and very aware how tenuous it all is.

I count off the approxemately ninety days I'll have to wait until it would be safe to live outdoors again.

I throw a blanket over my chilled, aching legs and sigh.