The Winter of My Discontent

I stand, forehead pressed to glass, so cold and hard on my skin. Looking out at this winter landscape. A white frieze of snow clings to the bend in the bare branch beyond the window. White against the dull dark gray of bark. White tipped branches stretching towards the gray colorless sky. A landscape in sepia. Gordon says we can see things more clearly in the winter. Brutal. Honest.

I see the beauty in it. I do. It is stark and stripped and minimal. But I’m not cut out for the winter—my body suffers in it. My wrist and fingers ache on one hand. My skin is chapped and rough. My cuticles are brittle and peeling. I’ve already had 3 colds. I cook food that is too fattening and I eat too much of it. I am leached completely of Vitamin D.

I dreamed last night that I was behind the wheel of a small car that I could not manage to keep within the lines of my lane. I was careening down a steep, twisty incline in rainy weather, scraping against guardrails and other cars. The road ended on a small spit of land upon which sat a structure that contained only a small square room lined with benches. The sea raged on three sides and was wild and tangled with kelp. The interior of the room was bland and stucco and off-white and there were no windows. It was a waiting place. And it was peopled with odd acquaintances of mine from my distant past and one little boy who had lost his mother. I was there for a long time. Remembering. Thinking back on the past. Offering comfort to the little boy. People would come and go from the room. It was never clear what we were doing there, only that we were waiting.

I awoke with a strong sense of that space: of the sea swelling and ebbing just behind the walls. I carried it with me today—that raging sea. That uncomfortable feeling of waiting. Of suspended, upended time. Of the loss of direction. Or the just plain lost.

Winter is a time for longing. It is a time of absence. The beauty of chiaroscuro.