What does winter mean for you?

That's what the winter is to me. I don't love the cold, but life doesn't stop, and I adapt to it. It's a time to spend time with family, cook food, read. Springtime is something to look forward to, but winter is hardly something that's just to be endured. It's a special time for me in the same way a rainy day is a special time. When it's sunny or warm out, there's quiet social pressure to enjoy it because IT'S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL, and sometimes it feels a little forced because for me, sunny weather does not instantly and automatically trigger unassailable bliss, I have the same good or bad days that I always do, and I secretly dread the pressure to be happy no matter what. (The funny thing is that when I don't experience that quiet pressure, I'm probably happy anyway. It's only when someone tells me that I NEED TO BE happy that something in me resists it. Funny to watch how your mind works...) 

In the winter, there's not the same pressure to enjoy the biting cold or slippery streets; I know people who do love the cold and thrive on winter sports, or they love the holidays and the traditions and goodwill that surround them. I'm talking about the special opportunity that a gloomy, cold day provides to be who you are and what you are in a whole different way than a mild fall afternoon provides. There's no pressure to be happy, so for a weirdo like me, I'm free to be happy. Or not. 

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a beautiful place year around for me, and while I've lost some of my childlike love for snow and chilly outdoor play as adult life has steered me toward seeing it all as an inconvenience, I've started to enjoy it again. The singular calm and quiet that comes with the first snow is a lot easier to notice and enjoy when you're not in the middle of the inner city. (And I'm talking about my own life - I lived in and around New York City for years; I don't deny that snow in the city's a special time, too, I'm referring to my own relationship to winter and my own life experience.) The sunsets are different, the distant Jemez Mountains are a stilling sight when they're dusted with snow, and the sight of low snow clouds over the Pecos Mountains outside my kitchen calms and nourishes me. 

The high desert isn't dead, ever, the way people who haven't experienced it might  imagine from the connotations that the word "desert" conjure. In the winter, we still have birds and coyotes and even rabbits and mice. (The prairie dogs are sleeping, though.) The cacti are dormant, but so many of the trees around here are low, scrubby pinon and juniper trees that there's still green, almost as much as there is any time of year save the brief rainy season. But the little bugs and hummingbirds are gone, and it's quiet at night. There are times when even the wind is still (try that in the spring here!), and a full moon over a fresh dusting of snow provides enough light to read by if you're willing to brave the 12 degree weather. I love it, and I'm actually learning to enjoy the winter again. We heat our home with a woodstove and with wood pellets, so I get to feel like a real provider - I cook food, I carry wood, I start fires. It's probably dumb, but I actually feel like I'm doing something for my family when I feed them or keep them warm. My wife is at least as capable as I am in all these matters, so it's not that they need me, but it makes me feel good to shovel snow or carry bags of pellets. 

Heck, I've actually even forgotten to dread the holidays this year. Could be my meditation practice is having some slow effects, maybe I'm just calmer because work's almost under control, could be that this healing place I live in has started to work on me, or maybe it's just that it's an election year and change is in the air. But I'm not trying very hard to bring the dread back...