We can winter through Winter 2020-21 by virtue of 30 Pleasant Things.
“Among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.” — The Sonnets to Orpheus II:XIII, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell translation
It’s December 2020, we are entering the depth of the Covid-19 pandemic and soon, the depths of winter. For me, winter has always been a season requiring “wintering through it,” never more so than the winter before us. I have always assessed winter as the four month period of December through March. By December the leaves have fallen. By April signs of spring are tantalizing. How do we get through these next four months?
I’m no fan of winter; aging, no snow bunny, bundling up and, to prevent glaciation so as not to slip or fall and injure ourselves, clearing snowfalls from decks, walks, drives, on and around vehicles, and the entryway directly underneath dripping and avalanching photovoltaic solar panels (the snow fence notwithstanding).
I’ve spent much of my professional life working from home, first as a graphic designer, then as an author, and as a stay-at-home dad, with the flexibility to undertake home improvements that I might not have done had I been commuting. Throughout, the only zooming was back and forth to my daughter’s school, vendors, meetings, coffeeshops, and gatherings.
For years I’d eagerly await April, to escape the Colorado Front Range for some weeks on Laguna Madre, the flat water windsurfing Mecca at South Padre Island, Texas. I’d start the two-day drive layered, wintered up, ending that first day on the high Texas plains in shorts and a sleeveless top…and it was smooth sailing from there. Who knows; could April 2021 conceivably include such a getaway? But meanwhile, there’s winter…
How do we get through these next four months? One month at a time, with 30 Pleasant Things. Each day, with whatever you’re fortunate to have at hand, consciously savor, at the least, one pleasant thing. An aspect of the natural world; the flavor of a meal or even a single ingredient; the antic, gaze, majesty, or company of a pet; the presence of a loved one; the technology to convene virtually. 30 Pleasant Things, and December will have passed. 30 Pleasant Things; January. And then February, and March.
See you next April, when we all may emerge into 2021’s warmth.