Winter

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus





I’m not sure if I could live in a temperate climate where it is always the same weather and always nice, summer-like, and sunny. My body, after fifty years, is in such a consistent seasonal rhythm. Like the tides pulled by the moon, my body and mind both go through a seasonal cycle, year in and year out.

Fall is my favorite season. The earthy tones of fall are my favorite colors and capable of taking my breath away (think Cinderella-pumpkin orange with an emerald vine-like green leaf). Spring is a new beginning, an awakening after the cold and gray of winter. Summer is just pure fun, and all structure and force go literally right out the window. Summer is a time of complete release.

But it is winter, I think, that moves me forward in my development and my life, because that’s the time I pull inward and become introspective. It’s when I have time to create and dabble. It’s when I cook the best meals. I’m free to read in the daytime and stay inside without feeling forced to get out and play. It’s when I write. It’s when I find how deep my well runs and how strong and secure are my reserves.

Winter gives me what I need to appreciate all other times of the year.

Photo: Two Lights State Park, Cape Elizabeth, ME

Sabbatical

To a mother, one day alone is the equivalent of a 3-month sabbatical for non-mothers.

I had the good fortune to have to drive my son to Sunday River for the day...and chose not to ski myself. I discovered it’s so much fun to be at a ski mountain and NOT ski. Where I’m normally in ski-boot-amputate-my-calves pain, freezing cold, and laden down with the weight of too many layers of clothing, ski equipment and 100-pound bags of gear (and again, the damn boots), instead I traipsed all around the grounds in warm, soft winter boots, my favorite jeans, and a fleece and down vest, believe it or not in January.

I was also fortunate that we are having such an unusual winter that it was nearly thirty degrees and sunny when it surely could have been ten and overcast. The difference, in Maine, between ten degrees and thirty is vast. (Naturally, I fear global warming, but it sure is more comfortable with practically no snow and balmy!)

As Ben headed to the slopes, I took a long walk to the right, up steep mountain roads and could just feel the roundness slipping off my butt! Then, I explored by car every dirt road at Sunday River including the side-of-the-mountain-scary one to the Grand Summit Resort, which, with snow blowing and other-worldliness way up there on the mountain reminded me of The Overlook in The Shining. I took photos, smiled ear to ear, basked in the quiet and sunshine. Brunch was a spinach omelet and a bloody mary sitting alone at a little table overlooking the mountain’s trails, again the sun streaming in the gi-normous windows in the ski lodge/restaurant.

After lunch, it was another long walk to the left, stopping to look at babbling, icy cold streams, ice completely broken through due to the high temperatures. I stopped and looked; I meandered; I smiled and did whatever I felt like all alone.

As Ben hopped into the warm car at day’s end, beat from a day on the ski trails, he asked if I’d been OK alone All day. “Oh, yes…..” and a big smile was all I needed to respond. We both rode home happy, spent in a good way, and rejuvenated.

Photo: Sunday River