Abeyant

I don’t know why, but I’ve decided I like these sunny, bitterly cold mornings; “sunny” being the operative word.  Something about the brightness of the day, putting a sparkle on the snow makes me want to get up and moving despite the bone chilling cold.  Everything seems warmer with the solar glow.

For me, these frigid winter months are a marathon of creativity in the mad rush to submit my contribution to The Sketchbook Project and the annual scrapbook weekend preserving photographs in the pages of the never-ending chronicles of my children’s lives. I use this time trapped indoors to purge my closets and basement, in hopes of traveling a little lighter through the next year.

Kristin Armstrong writes a great piece about winter and honoring our desire to hibernate.  She speaks of the seasons, how this one is a time to mulch all we’ve experienced in the previous year, and live under its cover, making ourselves rich with the fuel we need to bloom spectacularly in the spring. This makes me wonder why so few of us allow ourselves such a complete rebirth.

It’s customary in our world to take some time off around the holidays to partake in revelry, ring in the New Year with some champagne and a checklist of resolutions, leaping into January, engines roaring, to start fresh.  We can’t get the holidays in the rearview mirror fast enough; Christmas tree at the curb about two seconds after the last note of Auld Lang Syne leaves our lips. What happened to the time to rest and rejuvenate?

Isn’t the New Year the perfect time, especially in these cold climates, to pull over at a cozy roadside inn, consult the map and make sure we’re heading in the right direction?  With Mother Nature begging us to stay inside, why wouldn’t we use the time to confirm we’re still excited about the destination we’re moving toward, and chart a course taking us by all the sites we’d like to see?

In a world where rewards come to those who possess a lead foot, easing up on the gas pedal is often frowned upon.  The goal of the pit stop is to be as quick as possible, not to spend time pondering whether we should jump out of the car.

Hibernation is misunderstood, and therefore we can question whether our pause, especially if we’ve lost interest in the road we’re on, is just laziness or craziness preventing us from moving forward. We doubt ourselves, and maybe since we’re literally under the covers, we ask ourselves if we’re hiding something, if the path of our dreams is so divergent from how the world knows us to be today, we don’t dare tread upon it.

 

But this is exactly what hibernation is for:  Time for solitude and self-reflection; time to be straightforward and honest about who we are and who we want to be, time to cultivate a safe place where we can look bravely within, decide if we’re ready to speak our dreams out loud and take a step in the direction of our true selves.

I believe our dreams are stowed inside of us, waiting for the moment we are ready to make them happen. What’s stopping you?