The Discontent of Our Winter

For Christmas, I received a “Gothic Literature” wall calendar. Standing in front of it late last week I thought, “Phew, at least January is half over already.”

I struggle with winter. I know I’m not alone, but no matter how many strong we stand, to me winter always feels like an acutely personal attack. I can hardly sit still. I itch to go outside, but when I do the cold air tenses up my muscles, stings my face and lungs, and alienates my fingers and my toes. So I rush right back indoors. The sky is the same color as the ground. It’s not exactly grey, but looks more like someone simply erased it. It feels as though the sky puts the full weight of its emptiness right on my shoulders.  In the winter I’m resigned to the supermarket for fresh produce rather than my own garden. My socks and pants are always wet from the snow. My floors have salt stains on them. Driving conditions are miserable. Traffic is worse. Everything is inconvenient. And I miss the sunshine.

Every year, I cope in various ways. I look at property for sale in the south. I track the sunset times through daylight savings time, though it does little good when it’s overcast. And this year, I simply started counting down the days until the spring.

And then it hit me: I am willing half of my life away.

I’m not exactly not living in the moment. I mean, it’s not as though July rolls around and I start daydreaming of building snow men, or hunkering down with a cup of tea. To be fair, these things never appeal to me. I am experiencing January in all its full winter-ness. I am present and I am engaged.  I’m shoveling sidewalks, and navigating around snow drifts. I just, you know, hate it.  So, I anxiously await more temperate activities.

But I’m thinking that’s no good. It’s not enough to experience all of my life while hating half of it, and resentfully tolerating the other half of it. I want to enjoy my life…all of it. So I need to find a solution.

Since my job, and other responsibilities prevent me from running away to the south of France every January, I've composed a list of things I've been meaning to learn and do that I wouldn't want to waste a lovely day on.

At the top of my list: Paint the Downstairs Bathroom.

 It’s dirty and ugly. It’s a tight little space with a lot of small corners and obstructed walls. It has more horrible dropped ceilings, tangerine walls, duck egg blue curtains, and brown wainscoting. I've been avoiding starting this project. But then again, January is already half over, and there is no way I’m doing this in May. So here goes nothing.

Back on with the purple, plastic gloves to sand, prime and paint the wainscoting. 

At the moment it's sort of a tangerine dream, cream-cicle looking mess, but hey, its a start. And more importantly, I enjoyed it.