The start of winter is also a severance. It cuts us off from the frivolity of the other seasons. Autumn’s nostalgia is stripped away by the first hard freeze. Spring’s hope is too distant to imagine. Summer’s hedonism is a ghost. In their place is a stark, honest present. The trees are bare skeletons against a pewter sky. The garden is a flat, brown rectangle. There is nowhere to hide.
And yet, there is a peculiar peace in this beginning. Winter starts with a closing of the door. It is an invitation to turn inward. The world outside becomes hostile, so we build a smaller, warmer world inside. We read thicker books. We drink darker coffee. We sleep longer. start of the winter
The start of winter is not an ending. It is a reset. It is nature’s great pause button—a long, dark night of the soul that, if we are wise, we do not fight, but embrace. We light a candle against the gloom. We pull our coats tighter. We exhale, watching our breath turn to visible smoke in the air, and we whisper to the coming cold: I am ready. The start of winter is also a severance
There is a ritual to this season’s beginning. We feel it in our bones before we see it in the calendar. The body instinctively slows down. We stop pretending that iced tea and salads are sufficient. Instead, we crave the alchemy of the hearth: the slow braise, the root vegetable, the steam rising from a mug of broth. We pull heavy sweaters from the top shelves, woolen blankets from the cedar chest, as if donning armor for a siege. Spring’s hope is too distant to imagine