Anna also wrote about her perceptions of the month of January. She calls this month the “in between.” Contrary to what most of us have been taught about the first month of the year and the need to hit the ground running, she sees January as a time of hibernation, marination, and percolation. I love her perception and the reminder to take our cue from nature.
Finding Space to Rest in the Seasonal Rush
Winter encourages us to slow down and rest. We need that reset and recharge as much as nature does. And in winter, just as some animals hibernate or go into a state of torpor, we also need that time to enter sacred realms, including the dreamworld.
Winter encourages us to slow down and rest. We need that reset and recharge as much as nature does. And in winter, just as some animals hibernate or go into a state of torpor, we also need that time to enter sacred realms, including the dreamworld.The light is beginning to return, yet our daylight hours are still shorter. So giving ourselves permission to rest and sleep early in the night mirrors nature’s behavior. Especially as creatives, innovators, and entrepreneurs, we need the time to shut down the external and go inward to the potential within.
Brones does admit, though, that the societal pressure to perform or meet others’ expectations, especially during the holiday season and as we enter a new year, makes it challenging. It can be a continual push and pull to find a rhythm that is less frenetic than what most of us succumb to. Being able to go into complete hibernation is not really feasible for most of us, but we can give ourselves more periods of solitude and quiet.
Prescribed Hibernation
Which brings me to all that’s changed in my world since November 22, when I took a fall and fractured my pelvis. I was fortunate to have reparative surgery three days later and have since been in the healing phase. I am now on the downhill side of twelve weeks non-weight bearing on my left side. By the end of February, I’ll begin weight bearing for the next three months until I am fully mobile once more.
By Thanksgiving, I was home and settled into my hospital bed on the first floor of our house. Sometimes life requires that we change what we would normally do, and this was one of those times. Our family’s Thanksgiving gathering was cancelled as well as our Christmas gathering, which was a hard decision to come to and an even harder one to announce. Having to make such a drastic change to our family’s annual traditions was tough for everyone.
As we moved into December, though, I quickly learned that my focus needed to be on me, gaining strength and balance and learning to walk with a walker. As my home physical therapist has reminded me, “Your main job now is to rest and rebuild your body.”
When I was still in the hospital (and before I’d met my physical therapist), I told a close friend, “Maybe we can go to the mall together and walk and do a little Christmas shopping in a couple of weeks.” A few days ago, we laughed about that conversation. It wasn’t because I was on pain meds (although I was) or in denial—it came down to my lack of understanding about what the healing process and my capacity and endurance would look like.
I now know that healing my body takes time, energy, focus, an abundance of rest—and patience. But it’s taken many weeks and a few hiccups to come to that understanding.
Losing More Than Mobility
The first time I dropped my phone on the floor, my husband was in the shower. I couldn’t get to my “grabber,” which had also fallen. As I looked at the phone lying a few feet from where I stood, I sobbed. I wasn’t used to feeling helpless and having to wait for assistance, but I had no choice. I couldn’t do anything that would put me at risk of another fall.
Since my fall, I’ve been through the gamut of emotions. From times of deep sadness, grief, fear, and anger to gratitude, joy, and love, I’ve experienced moments of each. There has been a reckoning of sorts to consider what happened and why as well as what could have happened—it could have been so much worse. And as much as I like being independent and active, I couldn’t deny how fortunate I am to have help and support at home and from my medical team.
On December 24, I had to be transported to the ER to figure out what was happening physically—I’d begun to experience dizziness. It turned out to be sinus related and went on for a few days. Unexpectedly, I slumped into a weeklong depression. Although my physical setback was short-lived and non-critical, it showed me my fragility and the state of our life.
I went inward, feeling something unfamiliar, something that went beyond grief but wasn’t quite despair or hopelessness. I felt sorry for myself as I lay in bed on Christmas Day and looked toward the window where a Christmas tree usually stood. Along with the missing tree, there were no Greek and Italian cookies baked and no presents wrapped after shopping online. Only a few decorations had been set out by my sister and one of our daughters earlier in the month. They had offered to decorate fully, but I knew it was an ordeal that would also require someone to take everything down after the holidays. Caring for me and our dog and tending to our home was enough for Dominic to manage—I couldn’t put more on him.
Even though I knew intellectually that the holidays needed to be what and how they were, I wallowed the week between Christmas and New Years. I stayed off Facebook and Instagram most of the time because I couldn’t bear to look at the joyful events taking place. I listened to holiday music and watched mind-numbing holiday movies set to prescriptive story arcs but felt sorry for myself nonetheless.
Thankfully, the holidays have passed and I’ve adjusted to my circumstances. I also see now the benefit of going through this during winter rather than summer. The reflection of nature’s current state outside my window is what has helped me most of all to find my footing since the holidays, reminding me that we are in the quietude of the winter season.
Even Hardships Can Be Gifts
This time of wintering gives me plenty of opportunity to contemplate and ruminate. To let ideas marinate without any need to make decisions. It’s also a time of deep sleep. I’ve gone from seven to eight hours of sleep each night to nine to ten-plus hours. I am certain I haven’t slept for such long periods of time since I was a small child. As Katherine May says, “Winter is a season that invites me to rest well and feel restored …”
Initially, I wished it hadn’t taken an injury to connect me with this seasonal invitation to hibernate nightly and to engage with day-to-day life more slowly, but because it did, it’s important for me to let myself winter. Admittedly, had it not been for this accident, I would have pushed through the holidays, doing everything I normally do to make them special for our family. And, although I normally take a slower approach to January, I would have felt the rub of acting contrary to those around me who have already set their goals for 2025.
I now see this time as a gift. It was an abrupt pause that has become a gentle time of peace and calm as I tend to my body, mind, and heart. To gaze upon and glean my life up to this moment. To take stock of where I am and what life might look like in the future. To open a journal, a notebook, and let my mind and heart wander by way of my pen.
The Place of In-Between
“Transformation is the business of winter,” writes Katherine May, and that is what we are offered at this time of year. The space to consider our own becoming in this liminal time.
There is no need to become sick or suffer an injury to access it. With each year’s cycle, we come to this time when we can linger, slumbering longer, contemplating more deeply, and practicing the art of being. Although it is contrary to what society pushes us toward and may feel uncomfortable, it is possible to slow down—even just a little.
As writers, we can use this time to be in creative curiosity, allowing words to flow, giving ourselves permission to explore. In winter, it’s easier to access the in-between place, where dreams and dreaming occur, where magic is conjured, where worlds are waiting to be discovered, and where the mystical and sacred reside. What we may find is the gold elixir to the year ahead—for us and for others.
How might you gift yourself with times of wintering in the coming days and months? I’d love to hear what you discover.
