Winter, Winter, wherefore art thou Winter....

I have been freezing for 3 months now.   I have loved winter my whole life until this year.  Is it age, is the rheumatoid arthritis, is it just that I have spent this past winter at home on leave from work and just felt it more?  I don't know.

I am not going to drag us all down by bemoaning my trials through life, but I will say that I have only a handful of memories, that I cherish.  Winter features prominently in a lot of those memories.

My kids were born in the cooler months, my first ever full-time office job started in winter of 1988, I met my hubby in a northern hemisphere winter.

There are other events but I won't bore you with a list.  The heart of the matter is that I always seemed to come alive in the winter.  When everyone else shut down I opened up.  I got active, I got energised.  In my teens I would read books in the window and feel the cold glass on my skin as I leaned against it. Or I would snuggle up in front of the fire.  I felt cocooned and maybe that had something to do with it. I felt secluded and happy.

 As an adult I would put on my galoshes/wellingtons/gumboots (I am catering to a global audience) and potter about the garden in the chill air and somtimes the rain.  I loved it.   

I felt most comfortable in the season of hibernation.  When the trees were bare, and ice covered the puddles. Something about the earth resting appealed to me.

I still love the winter and the winter garden. But this year being home and suddenly realising how much it costs to heat the house all day, and not wanting to do it.  And realising how danged cold it is when you go out to do the shopping and carry it in with frozen fingers.  And trying hard to think of nice winter meals to feed the family...every single (insert expletive) day... has been hard.  There is just more pressure to do it when you are home all day.  Can't just throw a steak and some microwaved frozen vegies on the table.

I have been a working mother for 25 years.  I don't know how to sit still but I am hampered by the arthritis so I can't move fast enough to work up a sweat. So, shivering through each day has made this the first winter ever that I wish would just go away.

Having said that, I sooooooo love watching the garden gird itself for the spring explosion.  Love watching the buds on the trees swelling ready to burst open, love how everything shrivels up into itself, storing its energy for the spring eruption.  I see all the potential in each plant, stored in the changing bark, the budding branches, the leafless beauty and shape you can only see in the winter.

I guess I will have to change how I respond to winter from now on.  Can't ferret around out there anymore but can sit here in my comfy chair and just get lost in its wonder.  I can look out of my kitchen window and see what you can see in the picture I have added.  And I can take in a deep breathe and let the beauty and wonder of it calm me.

Instead of lamenting the loss of my ability to engage in the winter garden I will nurture the ability to just observe and appreciate it.  I will also try to document it as I have been since I started this blog - thanks to my friend Hopeful Writer who opened my eyes to the power of the digital camera. 

So, no more whingeing about how cold it is or how expensive to run the central heating.  Instead, I will run the damned central heating and I will relax about it.  I will sit here and day dream. I will watch the grass grow ever so slowly, the buds form, the aganthus flower spikes slowly spiral upwards.  I will watch the first pink blossoms of the nectarine tree win the race to spring.  I will count the camellia blossoms that fall and carpet the mulch below.  I will farewell the wilting jonquils and daffodils and welcome the rise of the bluebells, the rununculi, the freesias and all the other bulbs I have planted over the years and keep forgetting are there ..... CRS syndrome...

In short I will remember why I love winter so much and I will just adapt to my aging body and find new ways to appreciate and interact with it.

I just glanced out of the window and saw for the 100th time all the blossoms on my lime tree.  I sighed contentedly.  I realise now why I have been feeling this way - I think they call it cabin fever.  I have never been cooped up at home through a winter before. Fortunately I have wasted only one winter on this silliness - actually only part of it.  What a close call.

The bare red bark of the japanese maple right outside the window here beckons.  It is still only a juvenile tree but already it knows its role and function.  Dazzling bark in the winter, comforting leafy canopy in the summer.  Two more years, maybe even one, and it will be a magnificent sight and provide direct shade from the harsh australian late afternoon summer sun.

All this rambling has restored me.  Welcome back winter.  It's a shame you will be departing soon.  I will behave better next year I promise.