There is something about winter which I really love.
It feels sleepy, resting, in a sense meditating.
It seems to give an upspoken permission to just relax – to have some time for yourself.
All the colors are muted - grays and washed-out browns. And the trees are laid bare, to show a visual essence language written by their shapes, their intricate and poetic lines, all outlined with lacy fine twigs around the edges. At sunset, they glow orange.
The sun is hazy, diffuse behind a gray sky – you may even think it’s the moon.
I appreciate the warmth of a home or shop – that cozy feeling, the feeling of the heat of the hearth. Hot soup, tea, coffee, and perhaps a New York style salted bagel.
There is more night than day.
I watch each day, as bulbs grow slowly in little garden pots – bulbs like paperwhites and hyacinths.
I feel a centering, a pull to the home, what the Danes call Hygge – living warm, cozy, charming, in the moment, aware of the joy of simple pleasures – a candle, a warm plaid blanket, just-baked bread.
Winter feels like a time to germinate ideas, be introspective, thoughtful, to create – an inward-turning.
All sleeps, all rests – even the water stops moving, and your breath hangs visibly in the air.
And once in a while, quietly overnight, the snow falls – so you wake up surprised and dash window to window to see how “new and different” everything looks – how vast and inclusive the reach of the snow – mesmerizing falling snow. Everything sounds muffled – the ultimate quieting by beauty.
May you, too, enjoy the inner warmth of winter.