The Longest Day: Thoughts on Winter

“In the bleak midwinter” Christina Rossetti writes, “frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone”. Iris Murdoch describes seagulls “as pale as paper in the white winter sky” and Sylvia Plath observes that “winter dawn is the color of metal, the trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.” Are my literary heroes to blame for my hatred of winter? Have those brilliant but bleak similes burnt my nerves to the point of madness when the temperature drops?

I’ve tried for a while now to put logic to my intense emotions around this season – which are getting more and more negative as I get older. If asked what object I associate with the most this time of year, it would almost certainly be a blanket, perhaps with a hot water bottle thrown in for good measure. Fashion goes out of the window as I enshrine myself in fleece, wedging hot water bottles into robe ties and looking like a confused yeti as I wander the rooms of my house lamenting the draughty floorboards and windows that become heroes in the summer months. I haunt my house throughout these months, I become a ghost, wailing and floating through folds of blanket – my children accept this and crawl under bits of my new flowing dress, wondering when fun mummy might emerge from hibernation.

So it was with some trepidation that I made winter the theme of January’s workshops. Would everyone else have such caustic attitudes towards winter? Apparently not! In fact, the general consensus seemed to suggest that if you could peel yourself away from your poorly central heated cave, the winter-nature collision was probably worth getting cold for. As a precursory activity to an extended piece of writing, the participants had to assign winter related words to the 5 senses, populating columns with beautiful adjectives and metaphors to bring their winter scene to life. It was through this activity that I was introduced to the term ‘nacreous clouds’, which I’m trying not to overuse in my own writing, but its metaphorical possibilities are endless – a portal in the sky, pearlescent waves, heaven shining on earth. These kinds of details are important as Natalie Goldberg writes in ‘Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within’:

“Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter.”

Walking around with my eyes shut for three months, is to ignore that the earth is passing before me. Goldberg’s remonstration has reminded me of the responsibility of the writer to notice the small details of every season.

I stumbled across one such writer when I visited The Bell at Ticeurst with a friend a couple of weeks ago. This beautiful poem was printed on the back of the menu and suitably humbled me:

December is closing her eyes again.

Her and her slow blinking mornings, her fox-laughter

chasing us into every dawn.

Winter rolls in again, first frost crawling inwards, and she

brings her never ending midnight with her, tucks us

beneath the chill of her cloak, invites us to warm one

another.

Beneath her, between fire light and wood smoke, and a

winter chorus hailing back centuries, she asks only for us to

be light, to love just a little more and a little longer.

Soon, she promises, a thaw will come and she will release

us into spring. For now, mull over the year around cider,

apple spiced, and the warmth of wine

-do not mourn for it.

The birds will come back,

the world will be warm once again.

In the meantime, she says, carve each other a small slice of

a sunbeam. Find treasure in tiny pleasures, hoard laughter

in hands outstretched, cupped and over flowing.

Hold on, she says, the best is yet to come.

~Josie, The Bell @josie.vc.poetry

In my ghost-like state, I was doing what she implores us not to: mourning the lighter months. I was Miss Havisham, waiting for her summer lover to return to her while she rotted at home.

This month’s writing prompt takes inspiration from the end of this poem:

“Find treasures in tiny pleasures, hoard laughter/In hands outstretched, cupped and overflowing.”

Write a list of small treasures that can help you through the long winter and then write about one of them in detail.

Write for 5-10 minutes. Then longer if you want to! Don’t think too hard. Enjoy!

Feel free to send your responses to me @words_and_wine_ashford