I just learned there is a name for my malaise. Winter Fatigue. We are at the halfway point of the winter season and many people have reached what I found to be best described as winter fatigue. This particular fatigue is said to be the result of the cumulative effect of short days, cold temperatures, bone-chilling winds, snow and everything else that winter brings.
However, I'm not certain that all of the above is what causes winter fatigue. When you look at nature and how it appears to shut down in winter, maybe it's not winter that creates fatigue but our working against what is natural. By maintaining the same fast-paced life we live throughout the year, perhaps we aren't slowing down or slowing down enough during the cold months of winter and for that reason we are experiencing that feeling of winter fatigue.
What I’m trying to say here is that we need to slow down, rest, and renew, just as the earth does. But what happens is that the body and mind try to do that, and we try to force it into activity. When both resist, we don’t accomplish what we think we should. Lots of forces are working here, the long dark hours, what we should be doing syndrome and just wanting to hibernate—all this can weigh a body down.
As a name, Winter Fatigue fits right in with all the other winter weary descriptions: the doldrums; in the bleak midwinter; the January blahs; the dreary month. I remember when I first read the D.H. Lawrence essay, Whistling of Birds. He drew a vivid picture (so vivid that I remember it still, these many many years later) of the contrast between winter and spring. For Lawrence, winter is a season of death and destruction, destroying and freezing everything. He describes winter with words like unbearable, black, fatal, disastrous. He would have us move from a time of pain and misery into a new season of joy and life.
Back in high school, my English teacher drew parallels between this essay depicting birds being able to sing in the spring after a killing winter and Lawrence’s view of the soldiers in the Great War coping with the aftermath of war and being able to move on.
Maybe Lawrence was trying to make a connection between the ravages of war and winter and the human spirit overcoming that, but I find I have to disagree. For myself, even though this winter has had a firm grip on my soul, and I too, have used words like bleak, dreary and dark, there is no denying that winter has a beauty all its own. The brilliance of the sun sparkling on newly fallen snow, trees encased in ice, the landscape transformed by snow into a new, clean world of undulating white, trees encased in ice after a storm—all that beauty is hard to ignore.
In my world view, winter can’t be equated with death or destruction. For me, winter is a rest period, a time of gathering strength. And even while at rest, there is so much life pulsating, yet hidden under the blanket of snow.
I use the silver maples as my gauge. Even in early February, even while the world is frozen and the freezing winds blow, the maples’ buds are beginning to swell. I can look out the window every day and see the little bumps on the limbs get larger and larger.
I am feeling better these days. I feel like my personal batteries are getting recharged by the sun. As the days inch longer, my outlook improves, my energy returns and I am happy. This morning I was driving to work with CBC on the radio. They were playing an oboe concerto. I don’t remember if it was Schumann or Schubert but it was wonderful! The oboe was warm and lazy like a bumblebee sunning on a flower. I was transported into a different realm during my drive. It was almost a shock to get out of the car and see the six foot piles of snow in the parking lot.
It doesn’t hurt that I leave work in the light as well. Tonight it was almost 6 when I left and there was a glorious sunset. This after a long gray day filled with snow flurries. The last gasp of the day and it was lovely. If I didn’t know better I would think the gold was reflecting off the ocean or a lake.
I was getting ready to leave for work and we actually had sun! I looked out the kitchen window and saw this little guy absolutely glowing in the first morning rays of light.
Considering this was taken through a window and a storm window, it came out quite nicely. It is hard to beat a cheery red cardinal in the gray and white of winter. Makes me smile just to look at him. Bet you are wondering where the missus is. She’s there, just hard to spot when you are busy being dazzled by his magnificence.
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