I am now fully into my Dead of Winter self.
Coworkers ask me nearly daily, "Are you all right? You look as if you're going to cry."
Or they say, "You aren't yourself today."
To the first comment, I answer, "This is my January face."
To the second, I inquire, "Who am I?" and they only repeat the original observation.
I could tell them who I am: I am my Waiting Self.
All winter I wait.
I am just waiting, waiting, for Light to return.
My face apparently reflects that. I would never make a successful poker player.
Nobody says those things to me outside of work because when I am not at work I am asleep. I get home and take care of the dogs. If I'm ambitious, I provide some sustenance for Husband's consumption. Then I take off the makeup, get into my nightclothes and count the minutes until an acceptable hour to retire to . . . ahhh . . . my bed. My soft, cuddly bed.
This is the first winter that I have given myself over, as much as I have always wanted to, to sleep.
It is working for me. I am not wretched in mood and body, as I recall being in other years.
Before electricity, there was the habit of First Sleep and Second Sleep, and that makes a great deal of sense to me. The sun goes down: this human wants to sleep.
Today Slight Chc Snow Hi 30 °F | Tonight Slight Chc Snow Lo 12 °F | Friday Chance Snow Hi 29 °F | Friday Night  Cloudy Lo 11 °F | Saturday Chance Snow Hi 27 °F | Saturday Night  Mostly Cloudy Lo 8 °F | Sunday Partly Sunny Hi 20 °F | Sunday Night  Partly Cloudy Lo 3 °F | Monday Partly Sunny Hi 21 °F |
It isn't warm that I miss so much, although I do love the summer-skipping-out-the-door-in-whatever-I'm wearing-or-not. All the same, isn't it kind and good of Mother Nature not to slam us from August temperatures into these "no higher than 30 . . . ever . . . into the foreseeable future" temperatures?
Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come. ~Robert H. Schuller
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20 comments:
Multi-layered clothing, heavy boots,heavy coat, head covering - all that extra weight and I still feel cold! Windchill the other night was in the -40 range. (Makes no difference which scale it's in) - it's COLD... However the squirrels and various birds are still meeting around the feeder. Ms Skunk and all the raccoons are sleeping this cold weather off -lucky critters. :)) Oddly enough there has not been much snow here. BUT - we are getting more daylight and it will soon be groundhog day. Am I rambling? Yep - it's still winter. ATB!
Robert H Schuller knew a thing or two...
I love my summers too but have learned to enjoy winter more than I ever had before. The camera plays a huge part in that for me. It'll be spring before you know it.. keep warm and enjoy that sleep. Hibernation serves some of us well too.
Have you read Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia by Patricia Morrisroe? It seems our fixation on sleep or lack of it (especially in America) is a modern phenomena. I say sleep when you can, then wake and occupy yourself with something else until sleep comes again. I look forward to my bed, too - it's darn cold here!
January is almost over. I was thinking just the other day that perhaps the only people who like January and February are those who have birthdays in that month. Or live south of the equator.
Hang in there.
I have to say, there's something about getting into bed that is so addictive I do it every single day. SO cosy.
Hibernation has everything to recommend it !
What a great idea, to spend time in bed! I'm not any sleepier in winter, but I don't want to exercise much. Even where I live, when we get rain instead of snow and the temps are in the 40s, winter is a down time.
However, the days are getting longer and soon we'll be able to see that!
Thought of you when I read this on the shoebox blog today:
Seven Signs that you have Seasonal Affective Disorder
1. You notice that Seasonal Affective Disorder has the initials SAD, and you’re both sad and angry about this. You make up a new word, “sangry,” and you are. Sangry.
2. You build 14 detailed snowmen with various personalities and traits. Then you kill them. With a blowtorch.
3. Warm cookies cheer you up. At least the first couple dozen do. Then they make you sangry.
4. You build 14 more snowmen, all different from the first 14, but they meet the same fate. And before they do, you say, “Now you will meet the same fate!” as if they understood you and feared the blowtorch.
5. The happy cries of children yelling “snow day!” sound like actual crying to you, and you join in, which scares the children, and then they really do cry.
6. You go swimsuit shopping to cheer up. That’s how bad it’s gotten.
7. You build 14 more snowmen, put swimsuits on them and feed them cookies. Then, the blowtorch.
Oh boy, Carson. Shoebox nailed it.
Except for #6. I don't think I could ever get quite that bad.
But thanks to that list I do have my weekend mapped out for me... :-)
Hi June, I love winter --but ours are not nearly as harsh as yours.. What happened to your idea of moving to TN????? We still get snow---but it's not as bad as the northern states...
Hugs,
Betsy
Except that you are a superb writer and I am not, we are so alike, you and I.
Love the Schuller quote. Yes, spring will come. xoxo
Yeah, me too!
I'm writing with the laptop perched on my stomach...I'm in my cotton flannel jammies, snug under a down comforter. I long for white sand between my toes and a warm breeze...I find them in my dreams.
Hi Betsy. I'm still getting emails from the TN realtor; the dream lives on. Husband seems less interested these days...
Rusty, it WILL soon be Groundhog Day. That's the day I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy. I wonder if Punxatawny Phil is... Never mind.
MBFarm, I just glow when you write stuff that like that. And YOU are a superb everything else!
I know that urge to sleep! I think we are more akin to bears (or hedgehogs) than we admit ;)
Pauline, I think I might be a woodchuck. Round, jiggly, and somnolent in winter.
I love the Schuller quote. The light is getting longer, though very slowly..... spring will come. Trust you feel more hopeful soon.
I love your response "This is my January face". I may have to incorporate something similar into my vocabulary. Although, somehow, I have a feeling I may be tempted to preface it with "Piss off...this is, etc., etc." *grin*
BTW, I love the quote. Excellent advise, although a bit late, I'm afraid. Could have used this wisdom yesterday...*grimace* I'm stealing it, by the way.
Happy Weekend & Sweet Slumbers.
(OMG...my word verification is "Grinch" I kid you not. Spooky....)
At least January's nearly over and it's now kind of light when I leave work. Hurray.
Damn! woman.
I'd love to visit with you over a cup of coffee with a nice view out the window. I always find while visiting with friends - it helps to have a view to lift your eyes from the intensity of the connection.
Your direct, head-on approach to your truths is startlingly refreshing.
Now, regarding that winter thing. I've fought it all my life.
In the last few days I notice something is lifting.
We are remarkable creatures.
BTW. Have enjoyed your comments over at Marianne's who is one incredible woman.
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