It is cold here. Brutally cold. The heaters running in all of the spaces. The Christmas tree lights twinkling against an overcast background. Winter is upon us.
While autumn is my favorite season, winter and I have a more complicated relationship. I love the cold, snow, and give me the wind blowing across my face any day of the week. I am not as crazy about the cold and the wind when there is no snow to look at (or play in), and if I do not have someone to snuggle up with while drinking hot cocoa or maybe a more ‘adult’ beverage. While there are seasons where I have made peace with being alone and have even learned to relish it. Winter is not one of them. I am a snuggler and a hugger by nature, and no season screams snuggling and hugging quite like winter. It is hard to do those things alone. Okay, it is impossible. I compensate with the perfect comforter and quilt allowing me to burrow in my bed and feel cocooned while I sleep. You will not find me in a chair or couch without a throw or quilt draped in some way on or around me. These are the things you learn to do so that you won’t feel so alone.
I absolutely refuse to be sad or dreary about it.
There is joy to be found even in the cold winter days and nights.
I decided to turn my evenings where I do not have a commitment into holiday film nights watching a favorite a night over the month of December. I am only a couple of days in, but it has already proven fun.
I still have a pile of art and treasures to decide on how to display so every day I am picking a couple out to focus on finding the right spot for over the month of December. There is something about having your treasures around you that reminds you of how grateful you are for the life you have had, the memories with friends and family, and the possibilities of the memories left to be made.
I am spending a lot of time walking around inside the cottage and outside around it so that I can soak up all that has been accomplished this past year on the land. I sometimes stink at savoring my own hard work. I am trying to do better. Even at the precipice of winter, it all looks beautiful. I have had some amazing firms and talented individuals helping me fulfill the visions for this place.
I am also dreaming of the new year. I will be out of the country for nearly four months covering both winter and spring eight thousand miles away and in places I have never been during those seasons. My heart is giddy with excitement. Old friends, new friends, new students, new courses, fresh challenges, new places, and at the heart of it all - a school and villages that I have grown to adore and feel at home in.
If 2024 was the year of finding my footing as I walked through the mother of all transition seasons, then I enter 2025 operating at a slow jog with the intent on shifting to a comfortable run. I don’t imagine myself ever running again at the pace I kept up for decades, but I am not dead yet either. ;)
So, in that vein, I finally had some new headshots taken in November. I haven’t had any made since 2017 and was being advised I needed something more recent. I did not disagree, but I had a vision of what I wanted and even with a friend referring me to a local photographer, I hesitated to make the appointment. Further, I kept procrastinating shopping for clothes - both for the photoshoot and in general. Did I need new clothes? Yes. I just didn’t know exactly what I was looking for as I am in new roles, and my life looks different in general these days. What would represent who I am today and where I am headed. I know that might sound crazy, but my grandmother once told me that if you put yourself together, you feel better…different. I always thought she was a little pretentious about it all, but the funny thing about this transition and more time to think, all of the old wisdom you have heard your whole life suddenly rushes forward to the front of your brain. The truth is, at least for me, she was right. The further truth is that I have become uncomfortable in the spotlight, and I have intentionally made myself smaller as best I could the past dozen years. Tried to blend into the woodwork so to speak. When I was unsuccessful at doing that, it never boded well for me. There was an aspect of this that got reflected in my wardrobe. I do not particularly want to dive into it, but needless to say, I have been struggling with making a decision about new clothes because I have been taking the time to figure out who the f*ck I am.
…and there it is.
Who am I?
When you build your life around people or responsibilities or yes, even trauma (even and maybe especially when you do not know that is what you are doing), you lose yourself a bit. As long as they are good people, good responsibilities - they, and others, won’t let you get too far gone. Sometimes things go sideways though. Trauma rears its head. People change. Codependencies pop up out of nowhere. In general, shit happens because life happens. This isn’t true for everyone, but it was absolutely true for me.
The truth is that if it had not been for therapy and great mentors, I would have been lost completely in a life of my own making.
A lot of this past year has been making sure I knew who I was and what I want.
When the photo proofs came back, as I predicted, they fell in one of two categories - completely wretched or amazing. While I had wanted the photos to reflect who I am today - at peace, happy, content - out of something like 200 photos, the ten or so that were good reflected a woman who looked like she was about to brandish a sword and go to battle. I could not help but roll my eyes. I went with a half dozen of the best, but one stood out and let me tell you the reaction was strong and immediate from everyone that saw it, but my friend Sandy is the one that made me see the WHOLE thing differently. She and I were at a holiday dinner last night, and she leaned over and said this photo tells me everything I need to know about you and know to be true about you - fierce, strong, feminine, and kind. I was immediately misty-eyed.
Dammit.
Somewhere in the throes of trying to represent who I am now, I forgot that I can be, and frankly am, all of those things. Fierce and kind. Strong and feminine. I do not have to choose, and I am not sure I could if I wanted to and let’s be clear - trying to just be one dimensional is how I got myself in my past mess. The lie is that we do not have to be one or the other. Mary or Martha. We just don’t. And anyone who tries to fit us into a box or dim our light, is not someone who is good for us or has the best of intentions for us.
So, what does any of this have to do with winter you might be asking if you are still reading?
Well, #DDS told me a story once. I think it was an old wives tale that had become legendary about writing out a verse from Song of Solomon and placing it under your pillow and whoever you dreamed about was the one your soul loves. Well, I was in a pretty strange season when she told me that story, and due to the circumstances, I lied to her about who I dreamed of that night. I remember it was winter and so cold that night, and the truth is she and I never spoke of it again. I, in typical Heather fashion, never forgot.
That memory popped up just now while I was writing. I am pretty sure I know why, but for the purposes of this essay and this season, let me close with this…
Our hearts know who we are.
Our souls know who we are.
Our bodies know who we are.
Our minds know who we are.
Maybe not all at the same time. Integration is a real thing as I have written multiple times about. But they all know, and when you are in a season of healing or wholeness, and they are all operating on the same frequency, what they know about who you are is more powerful than a steel beam being erected for the tallest building in the world.
Just like that cold winter night when I was taught the strength of a soul’s pull for what it knows to be true, my heart/soul/body/mind never forgot who I was either even as I tried to.
Which reminds me of the first solo I ever sang at school back in middle school. It was called The Rose by Bette Midler and the final line goes…
“…just remember in the winter. Far beneath the bitter snows. Lies the seed that with the sun’s love. In the spring becomes the rose.”
So, all evidence to the contrary my friends, I do believe I am entering my spring.
Friends, if you are interested in reading or learning more about how seasons impact us, you might enjoy this book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat In Difficult Times by Katherine May. It was recommended to me as I entered this last transition season, and even as someone who is a big believer that we live our lives in a rhythm of seasons, this book gave me a new and unique perspective on how nature’s seasons do not always match the seasons our lives are in.
Had a conversation today about how we can hold two truths at once. It is the hardest thing.
What a beautiful piece of yourself!