It’s supposed to be Winter here in Africa but the days are, strangely, balmy. We are still thinking about eating ice cream and the washing on the line dries in an hour. A few weeks ago I was bracing myself for the onset of the chill because I have lived in a proper cold place before (where it snows) and I have never been so cold as I have here in the Sunshine City. Not a single window closes tight and double glazing and central heating are the last things on our minds (power issues for one). Anyway, the season is brief and it hardly seems worth it to go to such measures. It does mean, though, that if we do not pre-empt the drop in temperature and dress accordingly, we run the risk of taking a very long time to get warm again and anyone who has ever broken a bone in their life aches in that spot when the chill blows in.
Everyone is asking where the cold is. “We need cooler temperatures to destroy all the bugs and pests that build up over the summer,” they say. “If we have a mild winter we won’t get good rains,” they predict. And so as much as some of us struggle with the lower temperatures, there is agreement that Winter must occur in all it’s glory. One of my friends has been wearing a jersey and lighting her fire in the evenings although neither are necessary, but you know what they say about faith without works.
It’s been interesting to me that as my children and I read through Shakespeare’s works, ‘The Winter’s Tale’ just so happens to be our play for reading now. I had also ordered a book a while ago (when it was summer) that is appropriately called “Wintering” and that arrived yesterday! I haven’t started reading it, but the author, Katherine May, seems to have set out to write about embracing the hardness of winter. Beneath the title, I read the words: ‘The power of rest and retreat in difficult times’ and it resonates deeply. We shouldn’t fear or try to avoid the seasons of life, even when they are tough. Winter might be cold and dark, the ground hard, the trees naked but we do not have to strive for heat and light and endeavour to break ground and redress all that has been shaken. There is a reason for it all. Just as the sun sets at the end of every day like a daily sign that we can all set ourselves down too and recharge, the seasons invite us into a rhythm of highs and lows, activity and stillness. The very toughness of a typical winter actually calls for a slowing down, a snuggling up, a withdrawing for a time. I remember my mom once telling me that life does not always have to be hard. I don’t know whether it’s a first born thing or a personality type, but I used to think that unless I was working tremendously hard, it wasn’t good enough. When wintery seasons have hit, I have often gone into overdrive to insist that the hardness will go away and that there will be eternal spring in my heart. I have come a long way that I am no longer fighting the very seasons that are calling me to rest, not to try even harder.
I am an older mother; they probably call us mature mothers. I could totally be a grandmother but I still have small children. The lack of sleep and physical demands of this season could very much be a type of winter (much as I am having the time of my life!) Instead of breaking my back to be involved in all the amazing opportunities out there, I have come to a place of embracing the season. I am not fighting the hard like I might have when I was younger. They are not little forever and much as the older children pull me onwards and faster, the little ones keep me grounded. I’m behaving more like a bendy green sapling than a rigid, woody bush. I have given in to my life revolving very much around the home where it feels concentrated on togetherness, resting and feasting because the little ones cannot go as fast as we all can. I know my life may seem monotonous to some but being diluted and poured out all around doesn’t even sound attractive to me now. I see the gift of Winter and accept the invitation to lie low much as fear of missing out tries to get me to believe otherwise.
And so, the slowness of it’s arrival has given me time to think. I am stretching myself out of my unbending ‘bracing myself’ stance and I am waiting more eagerly for the winter. I know where the goose down duvet is and I have bought a woollen hat at the market. I will make pots of hearty soup and read more books and try to sleep in more on Saturday mornings. I will quit fighting it and embrace the opportunity to slow down.
When Winter cuts like a knife, we will spread butter on warm croissants with it. When a false love blows cold, we will wrap up the lovestruck victim with blankets of true love. If hopes and dreams fall to the ground like the last Autumn leaves, we will let them fall and we will keep watch for the hopeful new growth that will surely appear from the very place they fell. Winter must come and we will not be afraid of it.
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