Musings about Winter Solstice

 Flat light. Gray skies. Shapeless. Shadowless. Yet, not lifeless. Mother Nature still breathes, exhaling slowly as the night never quite leaves this place, preparing for her insatiable six-month inhale. It’s as if her own breath controls the seasons, everything growing dark and cold as she empties her primordial lungs and closes her eyes from the emptiness. Yet, just before life itself leaves her, instinct forces her last respire to turn inward, becoming the beginning of a new season as she draws in the very life force she expelled only moments earlier. Her very inhalation causes her eyes to open with fresh fervor. The wider they open, the more the daylight streams back into our lives.

Winter has always been my favorite season. With it comes the comforting layers of clothing and blankets that make me feel safe and protected. I understand the new fad of weighted blankets. I’ve known all my life that there is security in blankets. They cause a sense of wellbeing that is unmatched. It is the same way with heavy sweaters, fuzzy socks, and warm hats.

Darkness is also the same way. Not the kind of darkness that is forceful and feared, but the soft absence of light – that kind of darkness is tranquil and soothing. The noise that sunlight brings is absent, replaced with a sort of restful quiet. The need to go-go-go that summer presses upon me dissipates into the blanket on my lap as I curl up with my little, brown lab on the couch that camouflages her completely except for her glow-in-the-dark pink collar.

There is time. Time for thoughts that lead to written words. Time for music that fills the cabin and makes me sing along. Time for planning rather than doing. It seems strange to me, but I seem to have more time when there is less daylight. Maybe I just get more done in a shorter amount of time because of the feeling that the days are shorter. That is a definite misnomer, “The days are shorter.” There is less daylight, yes, but the days are, in fact, still 24 hours long. The nights are not longer; there is simply more darkness.

People on the outside (that’s what Alaskans call folks in the lower 48) often ask me how I can handle the long hours of darkness. My response is always, “The long hours of daylight are much worse.” I can put on a headlamp, light a kerosene lantern, or even fire up the generator for light, but there is no escaping the daylight of summer. Sure, there are blackout curtains in the bedroom, but have you ever tried to go to sleep when you were in the sunlight just five minutes prior? Human circadian rhythms don’t work that way, and the most important cue for these is daylight.

Outside. Now, there’s an interesting term. In Alaska, it generally refers to everything outside of Alaska. It sounds like prison terminology to me, and perhaps Alaska is a form of self-imposed imprisonment. Inversely, the term inside is seldom, if ever, used. One isn’t inside when they are in Alaska, but they are most certainly outside when they are not, thus the old Alaskan aphorism, “Where do Alaskans go in the winter? – Outside!”

Which leads me back to Mother Nature and the changes she has in store right outside of the window beside which I sit at this very moment watching a ground blizzard on the flats between the river and the mountains to the south of our cabin. There is no sun today, just the gray of the remaining winter solstice daylight coming from somewhere beyond those peaks in the distance. At the end of her exhale, she will begin fresh in the morning. It is fitting that this turning point every year happens just ten days before a new year begins. New life. New chances. A new breath.