Today, we gain one minute and 16 seconds of daylight for a total of 9:13:27 seconds of daylight. At summer’s peak on June 20th, it will be 15:20:53 seconds of daylight (on June 21st – the solstice – we actually lose one second). So, if you’re doing the math, we “gain” over six hours of daylight from winter to summer. If you go the other way, we “lose” six hours of daylight. Regardless, the upshot is simple: winter is dark around here.
The darkness of winter can trigger what I like to call my “human hibernation instinct”. It’s dark out there – I want to curl up with a book and a glass of wine on the couch and just let the winter slowly march towards spring. Since I can’t, I start looking up when daylight savings time begins again (it’s Sunday, March 10th, by the way). While switching to daylight savings may be hard for a lot of people, I still love it. It’s the most definitive sign that summer and brighter days are on the way.
But again, since I can’t curl up in a ball and simply wait for summer to come, I’ve been gradually forcing myself to learn to love winter. And you know what? It works! The key, I’ve found, is that you can’t feel trapped in your house. If you’re going to live up here where it snows, then you have to get your backside out in the snow and learn to enjoy it. So each Friday afternoon in winter, my sisters and I pack up our sleighs with our cross country skis and hiking boots (in case there’s not enough snow to ski) and we head to our local state park, which has a fabulous set of ski and hiking trails. It’s amazing how beautiful the forest looks in winter and additionally how far you can see without leaves on the trees. And finally, it’s best kept secret is that it has a great warming hut where a trio of sisters can bring some healthy snacks to share after skiing with some good conversation.
The impact has been tremendous. I used to get so defeated by winter that at about this time each year, I could only focus on how I was ever going to make it to spring. Now? Well, the ski season just began. I’ve got Fridays galore to go hiking with my sisters. In the meantime, I tend to enjoy other aspects of winter so much more now. For example, I don’t mind getting firewood in from the woodshed. Each small load that I carry is the promise of a cozy fire while I work away on my computer or after work with a glass of wine. Shoveling is still a big fat pain in my backside, of course, but I find I tend to do a better job “keeping up” with the snow rather than letting it accumulate and removing it all at once. Straight up: it can get pretty heavy and exhausting to clear three decks and a 120-foot driveway if you just let the snow pile up. (And we have a snow blower but it’s not ideal to use it when the gravel driveway isn’t yet frozen. Otherwise, it just throws rocks everywhere.)
And while I’m out here actually enjoying winter? Slowly, it’s starting to get brighter again. One minute may not sound like a lot, but it adds up. Since the winter solstice in December, we’ve gained 12 minutes. Maybe that doesn’t seem like much, but instead of adding 30 or 40 seconds in a day, we’re now adding minutes. (Okay, I read those two sentences and they sound like a pathetic plea for sunshine. 😊) Still, the message is clear here: things are starting to lighten up.
But in all honesty, there is a bigger moral to this story. For years – probably at least 20 – people have been telling me that I needed a winter activity so that I didn’t hate winter so much. Honestly, I didn’t believe them and I only made half-hearted attempts. A hatred that pure couldn’t be healed, I reasoned. But eventually, I got the message: winter wasn’t going away and simply hoping for a mild winter every year wasn’t going to cut it. I had to change. The year we had contractors doing our major renovations, I noticed that the winter just flew by because I was distracted the entire time by home improvement. And then two years ago, my sister insisted we try skiing in winter. She wanted to do downhill. I’m a hot mess on downhill skis so I suggested cross country. That winter flew by. And now? I was actually hoping for snow so we could ski.
And the lesson is even bigger here. No, it’s not about taking advice – although that argument could also be made. Instead, it’s about acceptance. I didn’t want winter to come, be a hard winter or linger into spring so I just assumed I could be miserable and vigilant and curse winter the whole time. That genuinely got me nowhere. But when I focused on changing me and not winter? Then I made progress. I mean real progress. Like, I don’t mind snow anymore and my Fridays in winter are pretty precious. Most of all, I can only go cross country skiing when its winter and snowy. So that gives me a reason to look forward to something I had gradually come to dislike. And suddenly? I’m that 10-year-old who likes winter again.
Now, if I could just apply this lesson to other areas of my life… . Sigh.
The Yuppie Homesteader 