Musings: As the Wheel of the Year Turns

Today is the official start of winter - my most hated season.  The only upside to it is the fact that days will grow longer as the weather grows more miserable.  I also still have Christmas (such as it is this year) to look forward to.  

I have friends in Florida and other warm climates who remind me that if I hate winter, I don't have to live in the northeast.  I can live someplace where it's never winter.  In this day and age I can work from anywhere and not be tied to the location of my job (although I am also voluntarily tied to my family).  Why not move and kiss winter goodbye forever?

One of the reasons I don't move is I don't know if I would be happy in a world of perpetual summer (although I suppose if I could find a practical way to move to Hawaii, I might give it a shot).  There is something about the changing of seasons that speaks to me.  The fact that I have to live through the short days and miserable weather of winter makes summer that much sweeter.

Ever since I was a child and able to understand the way the seasons turned, I have felt in tune with them.  I can remember patiently waiting for the days to lengthen in January and February.  At what point in the spring would I be able to go outside without a coat (one of the best days of the spring)?  When would I be able to go outside after dinner?  I was always a stickler for the official start of each season, even reminding my teachers that the date and not the month determined what season we were in.  I even loved the words "Solstice" and "Equinox" as if they were some kind of magic words that turned the world into something new.  It wasn't only the light and temperatures I observed.  I watched the budding of trees and the blooming of flowers.  As an adult, I crave the influx of fresh produce at the farm markets.

Up until the modern age humans have always been in tune with the seasons.  The ancients who lived in cyclical, rather than linear time, lived by the predictable change of season and the light that disappeared and returned.  They made festivals for it.  What are modern holidays, but religiously updated seasonal festivals?  Christmas is for the Solstice.  Easter is for the Equinox.  In Nordic countries where it's never dark at Midsummer, the festivals still continue every year.  No matter how out of touch with nature modern societies have become, there is an innate need to connect with the seasons.  

Now it's time take a virtual drive in the country with me.  

For the past twenty years I have been commuting to northwest New Jersey every weekend where my horses are boarded.  My route to the barn takes me from Route 287 in New Jersey to Route 23, which passes through Morris and Sussex counties.  There are still undeveloped stretches of road here where I can drive for miles seeing nothing but trees.  I take a different ride home.  I take Route 94 to Route 17A to Route 17, which pass through Sussex County NJ and into Orange and Rockland Counties in New York.  Route 94 is still peppered with farmland and fields.  Making this drive over the years has made the seasons resonate with me even more.

I often make fun of people who tell me how much they love fall because what they think of as "fall" (mild weather, beautiful leaves) lasts only a few weeks, but fall lasts for three months and I spend this weekly commute in the thick of it.  When the leaves have fallen, the Halloween festivities are on the books and DST ends, fall is much less glorious.  Driving to the barn this time of year can feel a bit depressing.  The sunshine is weak.  The trees are bare.  The fields are harvested.  The temperatures are cold.  The air is damp.

November and December provide one cheerful thought on those bare gray days.  I look at the desolate landscape and think of the holidays.  At some point families will come out of the cold to celebrate Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas (well, not this year, but other years).  We will leave the cold autumn and early winter days behind for a few hours of warmth and cheer (and FOOD).  I have come to associate those stark landscapes with holidays, if for no other reason than the contrast they provide.

The rest of the winter isn't so cheerful.  Like other horse lovers, I don't get a break from time outdoors.  I have to be out in the cold, snow, wind, ice, and darkness.  Once the coldest days of winter set in, that drive along country roads reminds me of what I have to endure.  Once in a while I will pass a house that has smoke coming out of the chimney.  All I can think of is the people inside relaxing in front of a warm fire while I have to endure hours of cold before I can be in a similar situation of warmth and comfort (and I don't have a fireplace in my condo).  It will be dark before I reach home.

(Yes, being with the horses is worth it.  I won't dispute that.)

A snowy landscape is capable of making me feel peaceful sometimes. Watching the falling snow is calming.  The leafless trees provide and blanket of snow provide no cover for wildlife.  It is the best time of year for bird watching.  I can have fun identifying animal tracks in the snow.   Winter can be a time to appreciate small pleasures, even if that's only because big pleasures are hard to find.

This is why I still enjoy watching for the light in the sky to stay a little later.  On a normal January day I can step out of my office at the end of the day and look downtown and see the tail end of the sunset.  Then I can start looking forward to the equinox, knowing the days would be longer than the nights. 

I never liked the early Daylight Saving Time.  To me starting DST before the spring Equinox makes no sense.  The day isn't longer, the daylight is only shifted an hour.  

My lament about the spring is that it doesn't exist in the northeast anymore. A sunny, mild, spring day is like a shooting star.  They happen sporadically and never stay for long.  I spend most of April and May hoping for warm sunny weather and only see weeks of chilly and often rainy days.  I like the spring in theory, but I have had ex boyfriends less fickle than spring weather.

When warm weather finally arrives and everything is green again, it's a small pleasure I have stopped taking for granted.  Now when I am driving along those country highways on a warm spring or summer day, I find myself spontaneously smiling at the beauty of it.  I want to savor every second of it and soak it in.

Would I appreciate it less if I didn't have to suffer through a cold winter?  If I lived in a climate where the weather was beautiful all the time, would I take it for granted?  Summer is the new Christmas.  I spend months anticipating it, only to find it's over all too quickly.  But there is joy in the anticipation of better weather and longer days to come.

On the day of the Summer Solstice I always take an early morning walk to greet the sunrise and insist on being outside until the sun goes down.  I want to soak in every minute of that precious daylight, all-too-aware that the next day the sun won't be out for quite as long.

Tonight is the Winter Solstice.  The wheel of the year turns once more.  I won't be lighting Yule logs (a pre-Christian Norse tradition) or chanting "Io,"  appointing a chief Mischief Maker, or going waissaling. I will be indulging in my own traditions of a cup of homemade hot chocolate and a few of my favorite winter storybooks.  The sun sets at 4:30 today.  Tomorrow it sets at 4:31.  I will spend the rest of the week looking forward to Christmas.  Then I will return to watching the sky.