Seasoned Voices: Winter
Flavored with insight and infused with heart…
Welcome to the first seasonal collaboration of Seasoned Voices. Last month we introduced you to our joint venture as five women bloggers who have come together to explore our journey into midlife and beyond, using seasonal themes, shared curiosities, and newfound insights to frame these stories. Our Seasoned Voices collaboration serves as a shared resting point in our collective journey, a space to both land and connect for the five of us. Although there is communal joy for us in finding a seasonal topic to share, there is also great personal value in meeting online each month to catch up, discuss both wrestling with and embracing the aging process, and share the challenges and growth we are experiencing as we move through life’s seasons. Sharing our life transitions, reflecting on shifting perspectives that come from our experiences, and making connections help to lead us to the decision of what we’ll write about for our Seasoned Voices’ post for each changing of season.
As we near the ending weeks of winter (fingers crossed), perched on the margin of spring, our focus for this collaboration may touch upon how we have experienced this and other winters, along with the metaphor, as May Sarton describes it in the quote below, of being in the winter of our own lives. You can visit each of our blogs to see where our snowy paths have converged and diverged as we examine our wintering lives through the lens of May Sarton’s words, sharing our Seasoned Voices.
Winterlude
Earlier this week, the sun was shining and there was a whiff of false spring in the air. Green patches had started to appear on well-trodden paths in the backyard, and the remaining snow had taken on a crusty glaze of self-protection. But listening to the weather forecast a few nights later, another round of snow was predicted for the coming days, a potential 4 - 8 inches and a reminder that, of course, winter is not ready to be over in late February, just as the Pennsylvania rodent predicted. And, well, that’s just the way it is.
Since I have retired, winter doesn’t seem to show up in my life the way it used to. I don’t show up in winter the way I used to, either. Through most of my working adult years during Vermont’s winters, I used to fly in and out of my car on the way to meetings and schools, no hat or gloves, coat open, slipping through the snow in heels, always rushing – rushing through winter. Winter was something I’d “walk off,” like an annoying cramp. The drama of winter seemed to rule my life: nor’easter on the way, wintry mix, treacherous road conditions, power outages predicted. Living an “all caps season” was stressful, irritating. Since I have retired, I have learned how to lean into winter (and wear proper winter gear), letting the ice and snow run its course.
“With age, I am able to savor the winter of my life — the quiet, the depth, the slow-burning light of my own company.”
Winter can be a metaphor for aging toward an end. But I don’t want to see it that way. At least not yet. As I approach my seventies, my understanding of why Sarton characterizes this time as “the winter of … life” continues to deepen. But I have to admit, when I initially dug into the quote during our Seasoned Voices discussion, I bristled. Was she implying some sort of ending, that old age is the “winter of life”? To interpret it that way would be to infuse the quote with a bias, that the “winter of life” should be interpreted as a decline, as an ending. I guess I am not immune to ageist stereotypes percolating up into my own worldview. But having read all of Sarton’s journals, which reveal her willingness to plunge the depths of aging to surface insight after insight, she’s using the “winter of life” as a metaphor for the slowness of this time, the pleasure of solitude, and the quiet richness of reflection.
Leaning into winter; leaning into my inner life….
“‘What do you do here all day?’
‘I read, he said, I think. I remember.’”
From The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves
At this time of my life, I choose a reading-writing-thinking hibernation over hustle culture, hands down. Like Sarton, I feel more at peace with who I am, who I am becoming, and I both crave and love the slowness of most days– the “quiet and the depth.” It feels like there is an abundance of time to reflect on how my past selves show up in this time of my life, urging me to move forward—to keep “becoming.” It’s a time to both remember and dream, and to embrace the days for the potential of discovery and growth, appreciating my own rich inner life. That’s how I lean into in winter now. The serene beauty of fresh snow, the reflection of moonlight illuminating the night’s white, glistening, tranquil landscape–that is the winter I have learned to value for its offerings. I love the dark mornings, lighting a candle, and sipping my coffee while I write in my journal, my small world barely awake. I even love the short days that lead to the early nights – getting into bed at 8:00 to read for a few hours. These are gifts of retirement, of aging, and of winter.
“All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself.”
In the cycle of the seasons, can there be a pure ending? Perhaps our personal metaphors for the seasons come from our actual experiences with them, rather than the expectancy of how the seasons are traditionally characterized, metaphorically or otherwise. The connective tissue, the interdependence of the seasons, reminds me of my own ever-evolving and iterative past, present, and future: today is gone, tomorrow’s already here, etc. As I move through my elder woman years, the winter of my life evolves into a spring that signals a reminder of how much actual life there still is in my life, those Precious Days. Urgency, discovery, and growth feel like characteristics of that spring – a spring to celebrate after a winter to savor. But that’s a story for another time, for another season.
