Wintering

There are moments when life strips away everything familiar, leaving us standing in the cold, uncertain terrain of our own vulnerability. Perhaps it's the sudden illness that stops us in our tracks, the job that no longer fits, the relationship that crumbles, or the simple but profound realization that the path we've been walking no longer leads where we thought it would. These are the seasons when we feel cut off from the warm, productive world around us, when we seem to have fallen through the cracks of normal life into something darker and more challenging.

Most of us have been taught to view these difficult periods as failures—temporary setbacks to be powered through as quickly as possible, embarrassing detours from the straight line of success we're supposed to be traveling. We're encouraged to bounce back, to stay positive, to fake it until we make it. But what if these seasons of difficulty aren't obstacles to overcome, but necessary passages to navigate? What if, instead of fighting our winters, we learned to inhabit them with grace, understanding, and even wisdom? The journey through life's cold seasons teaches us that there is profound beauty in rest, healing in retreat, and transformation in the very experiences we most want to avoid.

The author's personal winter began on what should have been a perfect September day, celebrating her approaching fortieth birthday with friends on the sunny English coast. They had gathered at Folkestone beach, children playing in impossibly turquoise water, everyone laughing and taking photos of the vintage launderette and pastel beach huts. It was supposed to be the beginning of two weeks of celebrations, a gentle passage into a new decade of life. But even in those golden moments, her husband H was complaining of feeling unwell—just a stomach bug, they thought, nothing that would derail their plans.

What followed was a cascade of events that would reshape everything: H's condition worsening through the night, a rushed trip to the hospital, his appendix bursting while they waited for treatment. The author found herself keeping vigil beside his hospital bed, watching monitors and advocating for pain relief, suddenly thrust into the role of fierce protector when she had expected to be celebrating. In the space of a week, she had given notice at her university job, hoping to escape the constant stress, and now here she was taking compassionate leave to navigate a medical crisis.

As she sat in those long hospital corridors, waiting and watching and worrying, something shifted. She realized that this catastrophe wasn't separate from the hurricane already blasting through her life—it was part of it. She had been living at such an unsustainable pace that her body and circumstances were staging an intervention, forcing her to stop, to pay attention, to acknowledge that something fundamental needed to change. Winter, she understood, had arrived whether she was ready or not.

Life's winters rarely announce themselves politely or arrive at convenient times. They slip in through the cracks of our carefully constructed plans, revealing the fragility that we work so hard to conceal. But perhaps their gift lies precisely in their inconvenience—in the way they strip away our illusions of control and invite us to discover what we're truly made of when everything familiar falls away.

In the depths of her illness and uncertainty, the author found herself traveling to Iceland, a decision that seemed almost reckless given her condition but felt utterly necessary. She was five days past her fortieth birthday, signed off work with mysterious abdominal pain, and struggling with fever and exhaustion. The Blue Lagoon's milky waters, heated by geothermal energy from deep in the earth, offered both physical warmth and something more profound—a lesson in finding comfort in the harshest conditions.

Floating in those mineral-rich waters while snow threatened on the horizon, she began to understand something essential about endurance. The Icelandic people hadn't conquered winter—they had learned to dance with it, to find beauty in its severity and comfort in its challenges. Their entire culture was built around accepting the reality of long, dark months rather than pretending they didn't exist. They prepared for winter starting in summer, stocked provisions, lit candles, and created rituals of warmth and light that carried them through.

But it was the midnight hours back home that taught her the deepest lessons about darkness. Waking at three AM, consumed with worry about money, health, and the future, she initially saw these sleepless hours as torture. Everything felt worse in the darkness—her problems magnified, her fears amplified, her sense of isolation complete. Yet gradually she began to discover that these might not be hours of torment but of possibility. Historical research revealed that before electric light, humans naturally divided sleep into segments, with a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night dedicated to reflection, prayer, and quiet contemplation.

Learning to befriend the darkness, whether in the Arctic landscape or in her own bedroom at three AM, became an act of profound self-acceptance. Instead of fighting the wakefulness, she began to use it—lighting candles, writing in journals, reading slowly and thoughtfully. She discovered that darkness wasn't the absence of light but its own kind of presence, offering gifts that could only be received by those willing to stop running from it.

Standing on a frozen English beach in February, wearing nothing but a swimming costume while ice crystals formed on the seaweed around her, the author was about to discover one of winter's most powerful medicines. She had connected with other brave souls willing to plunge into the 3-degree water of the North Sea, not for sport or show, but for the profound healing that cold water seemed to offer. Those first moments of submersion were shocking—the cold hit like a wall, knocking the breath from her lungs and drawing her body tight like a rubber band.

But something remarkable happened in those crystalline seconds. After the initial shock passed, a strange peace settled over her. The relentless chatter of her anxious mind fell silent. The chronic pain that had been gnawing at her for months seemed to recede. In the water, with her fellow swimmers, she found herself laughing and talking freely about fears and worries she couldn't normally voice. The cold had created a kind of temporary sanctuary where vulnerability felt safe and authentic connection became possible.

She wasn't alone in this discovery. Around the world, others were finding that deliberate exposure to cold water offered relief from depression, anxiety, and trauma that traditional treatments couldn't touch. The science began to make sense: cold water triggers the release of dopamine and endorphins, reduces inflammation, and forces the mind into the present moment. But beyond the biochemistry was something more profound—the recognition that sometimes healing requires us to move toward discomfort rather than away from it.

Each morning's swim became a practice of courage and presence. The fear of entering the water never fully disappeared, but facing it daily taught her that she was stronger than her fears, more resilient than her worries suggested. The cold water had become a teacher, showing her that the very experiences we most want to avoid often contain the medicine we most need to receive.

The robin outside her window began singing in the depths of January, when other birds had fallen silent and the world seemed locked in winter's grip. This small, bright-breasted bird appeared each morning as she wrote, head cocked with curiosity, apparently unbothered by the cold that sent humans scurrying indoors. Robins, she learned, sing not despite the harsh conditions but because of them—their winter songs are displays of strength, announcements that they have not just survived but thrived, storing up enough resources to pour energy into beauty even in the leanest months.

This lesson in seasonal resilience took on deeper meaning as she watched her six-year-old son struggling with the brutal realities of school life. Bert had grown anxious and withdrawn, his natural joy dimmed by classroom pressures and playground cruelties that would be considered intolerable in any adult workplace. When she finally pulled him from school, people questioned her decision, worried about his future, his qualifications, his ability to cope in the "real world." But she had learned something important about survival—sometimes the bravest thing is to step away from situations that diminish us, even when others insist we should endure.

Like the bees preparing for winter by storing honey and strengthening their hives, she began to understand that survival isn't about toughing it out alone but about building the support systems and resources that make thriving possible. She found communities of families who had made similar choices, creating networks of support and understanding. She discovered that what looked like isolation to outsiders was actually a form of strategic retreat—pulling back to gather strength, to heal, to prepare for whatever came next.

The winter months became a time of quiet industry, of learning new skills and nurturing hidden talents. While the world outside seemed dormant, essential work was happening: roots growing deeper, resilience building, new possibilities taking shape in the protected space of home and family. The robin's song reminded her daily that strength isn't always about enduring hardship—sometimes it's about having enough abundance to create beauty in the bleakest seasons.

As spring approached, bringing longer days and the first tentative warmth, the author began to understand that winter's end isn't a return to what was, but an emergence into something entirely new. Like the trees that had spent months appearing dead but were actually engaged in the invisible work of root growth and preparation, she had been transformed by her season of difficulty. The woman who emerged from her winter bore little resemblance to the one who had entered it—she was quieter but stronger, more selective but more generous, less busy but more purposeful.

The ritual of marking the winter solstice on the beach, lighting a small fire as the sun set at its furthest point from summer's warmth, had taught her something about the power of conscious transitions. Instead of simply enduring change, she had learned to witness it, to honor the passages from one phase of life to another. The simple words "We have turned the year" became a recognition that transformation is both inevitable and sacred, something to be celebrated rather than merely survived.

Her voice, which had literally weakened during the early stages of motherhood and career stress, returned stronger and clearer through deliberate practice and patient restoration. Learning to read Dylan Thomas's flowing prose aloud, she discovered that she had been approaching life like a series of obstacles to overcome rather than a song to be sung. The rhythm of the Welsh poet's words taught her to move through challenges with fluidity rather than force, to find the underlying melody in even difficult circumstances.

The cycles of the year had revealed themselves as mirrors of the cycles of human life—seasons of growth and seasons of rest, times of abundance and times of scarcity, all equally necessary and valuable. She had learned to see her periods of difficulty not as detours from her "real" life but as essential chapters in a larger story of becoming. Winter had taught her that rest is not laziness but wisdom, that withdrawal is not weakness but strategy, and that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is allow ourselves to be transformed by the very experiences we most want to resist.

Through the interweaving of personal narrative with the natural wisdom of seasonal cycles, this exploration of life's difficult passages reveals profound truths about resilience, renewal, and the courage to embrace change. The author's journey from burnout and crisis to healing and growth demonstrates that our most challenging seasons often contain our greatest opportunities for transformation. Whether facing illness, career transitions, family struggles, or the simple but profound task of aging, we can learn from the natural world's approach to winter—not as a time of death but as a necessary pause that makes new life possible.

The practices that sustain us through difficulty are surprisingly simple: seeking community with others who understand, creating rituals that honor our transitions, finding small daily practices that restore our sense of agency and hope, and learning to distinguish between the changes we can control and those we must accept with grace. Most importantly, we must resist the cultural pressure to bounce back quickly from hardship and instead allow ourselves the time and space needed for genuine healing and growth. Like the robin singing in January or the trees that appear dormant but are actually preparing for spring's explosion of growth, our winters are not endings but essential preparations for whatever wants to emerge in us next. The gift of embracing our difficult seasons is the discovery that we are far more resilient, creative, and capable of renewal than we ever imagined possible.