Learned Lesson Number Five: Winter Passes

Right now I am listening to a chilling wind howl away outside my bedroom window. My parents’ home sits atop the foothills of the Wasatch Front, and the wind coming down the canyon can get going at a good enough clip to carry away a small child. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration, but more often than not, the trellis in the back yard is on the ground, and the dumpsters have been known to make their own way down the driveway. Although I was born in Utah and lived here until I was nine, I consider myself an Arizona Desert Rat at heart. That said, it’s not like I have never done winter in a cold place. When I was married and we were moving around the country, I spent some bitterly cold winters in places like St. Louis and Detroit. Car doors frozen shut, black ice on the road, endless ear infections for the kids, and a sudden abundance of mice in the house. (My illustrious but short-lived career as a mouse executioner is a tale for another blog.) True winter is not my favorite thing, but I have handled it before. So I was a little blind-sided by how afraid I have been of the cold and the dark of winter over the past few weeks.

After spending the Christmas Holidays in Arizona with my kids, I was suddenly terrified to return to Utah. I did not want to leave the warmth and return to the cold. (Literally and figuratively on both counts.) A big part of the figurative cold was my own self-doubt, due to the fact that over the last five years, I have tried to make positive changes in my life and have felt like I failed both myself and my children miserably. Over and over again. The final weeks of 2010 came with some unexpected challenges that very nearly caused me to fail colossally, but I somehow managed to salvage things. Now the college degree and hopefully self-sustaining life I am seeking is suddenly within reach, and I find I am afraid to reach out and grab it. Being the master of self-sabotage that I am, I fear for the safety of this new and better life in the hands of someone such as I.

However, I forced myself to come back to winter, in spite of these feelings. I bought a warm coat and a scarf and tightened it around me, and I am facing January head-on. I have discovered a few things about winter in the past two weeks, and one is that there is a phenomenon called an “inversion” that lives up (down?) to the cold and scary image of winter that I have been discussing thus far. Basically, it is a weather condition where everything cold and gray gets trapped below everything warm and light. I have an aversion to the inversion, definitely. But it does not last forever. Some days have crisp blue skies, and the snow-covered mountains set against such a backdrop are blindingly beautiful. Majestic, actually. So much so that I have to wear shades while viewing them.

Another thing I have learned, in my job as a teachers’ aide with regular recess duty, is that children do not fear winter. Inversion or no, sub-freezing temps or icy stretches of playground, they are out there in their rosy-cheeked glory, living their lives with boundless joy. Snow angels in a dress? No problem. Ice sculptures on the basketball courts? Why not? It’s still recess, and recess is fun. And fun trumps fear. As I approach age 50, which might be considered “winter”, I am seeing more and more indicators that the best way to head into the next 50 years is to turn around occasionally and look back at “spring”. Remember what age 5 or 15 felt like, and use that. Then go forward again. Because spring also comes after winter.

Last week I was in a 4^th-grade classroom, where my job was to walk around the room and help kids with their math. This particular teacher plays classical music during math time, and she also has an abundance of wise and happy thoughts on every wall in the room. I kind of want to be a 4^th-grader in her class. On this particular day, it was very cold and gray, and it was snowing outside, but I felt warmth, peace, and hope. When I looked out the window, I noticed that the snow that was falling was so fine that it looked like glitter, sparkling as it drifted down. I could not see the sun, so I was puzzled by where the light was coming from. It struck me that enough light must be getting through the gray to light up the snow. I think I just didn’t see it before, because my focus was on my fear of the dark. Suddenly every single thing I need to do in the next six months was illuminated in my mind, and I did not fear it. I knew that spring was not far off. Winter would pass, as it always does, and I might even miss it when it was gone.