Wintering, Snow So Deep...
Managing challenges and meeting them with courage and integrity
I’m cold.
I’m depressed.
I’m in the hospital for 6 weeks.
All the hustle and bustle and noise that comes with it.
I think the hospital is full. It sure takes a long time for someone to answer the phone and longer for a nurse or CNA to pop up at my bedside (with two blueberry muffins-I sure am hooked on them!)
I was reading an article from probably the best writing coach I listen to.
She is a teacher in Germany. Her name is Henneke Duistermaat.
It’s twenty after 5 AM. The internet in the hospital works as usual, on a whim and a prayer.
My iPad, mini iPad, and laptop are at the mercy of the gremlins again. I get so sick and tired of it. WAIT! Don’t leave I’m getting into the flow of the bitchy writer!
My laptop is six years old, at least, and shows every bit of its age. I had to reset it twice. I used the Dell software to wipe and reinstall the software. The first time I used it was fine. The second? Not so much. It wiped out the 2+ terabytes I had on my external drive. Notes, research, 40+ years of personal stuff. Me? Mad? Nah! And I lie as well.
This is going to be a problem. My laptop is six years old. My iPad is as well. My mini-iPad I love but carelessly. My fingers are almost completely numb from diabetes so I continually drop it. iPhone too. Maybe I can use my life insurance to buy new ones but that has its own problems — how would I buy them if I was dead or even why would I need them?
How do I write without one? When I started writing in earnest I bought some journals. I get with the flow easier using a journal but then I can’t read my handwriting. I have even printed out pages of 3rd-grade cursive practice sheets — but I forget to practice.
I need to review my writing style. I was reading an article by @Tim Denning describing his writing style. I should listen to him. He has 10,000 readers on MEDIUM and a similar number on LinkedIn. Maybe I should get serious? Am I sounding like Rodney Dangerfield? Tim has a huge following on Medium, LinkedIn, and Quora. Sigh! If only…
How do you do on these brutal winter days? I lid in my hospital bed listening to the weather on how tough it was on you- 18"+. Not any more kids! Those days are over!
I never used to ache like this. The cold magnifies every pain. My eyes dry out. My throat is dry and the mucus from my nose isn’t any solace since it makes me cough. I’ve started wearing my insulated boots in the house but they don’t keep my toes toasty anymore.
I read a piece in Hennecke’s column. It is a piece by Teresa May. She wrote a book “Wintering”. She talks about fallow periods. My Grandpa had a dairy farm. He would let different acres go fallow each year. A land is fallow when the farmer doesn’t plant on it for a year. This helps restore the land’s fertility for the next growing season.
I’m like that a few days away from the computer helps restore my even keel (and my sore butt).
Sometimes, if it is longer than a day, my butt still gets sore because I kick myself for being unproductive. Lately, I’ve been having trouble planting myself in my chair and really pounding the keys.
“Plants and animals don’t fight in winter. They don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the lives they did in the summer.
They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them thru.
Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency, and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the lifecycle, but its crucible.
The United States Marine Corps instituted a crucible. I think it is the last 10 days of basic training. A crucible is a trial that can create something new. In the Marines it is a pressure cooker of no sleep, massive amounts of running, and what the Marines do best- ungodly long marches with full 80# packs. The fire in the gut tells a young man or woman- yup, I made it. I am stronger and tougher than I thought. I proved to myself I can meet every challenge, and conquer it.
What an exhilarating feeling that must be. I know my three sons accomplished more in the Corps than they thought they could do.
Steel sharpens steel. It sharpens blades and does not dull them. Knowing you can depend on yourself more than you ever imagined builds the courage and fortitude needed for excelling in the challenges of life whether it be in conflict or excelling in a task assigned by the boss.
We need winter for plumbing the depths of our souls. We need the sharpening of steel upon steel to find how deep our courage and integrity run.
Katherine May’s book title is “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.” Henneke highly recommends it.
“Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom lives in those who have wintered.”
How do we focus on the many parts of a winter day? The brutal cold of starting the car in minus 30 below temps with the windchill several 10s below that. It takes my breath away just thinking about that challenge. Why wouldn’t sleeping in for another 30 minutes be OK? Nobody’s going to know about it!