rhythm of winter

Winter is settling into the Loire. You can tell because things are freezing, now; they take most of the morning to thaw. The nettles become white, every tooth and spike covered with layers of crystals that exaggerate their form. While the Loire and the Thouet continue to move fluidly, the smaller streams have become still, their surface a bit matte. Within, you can see reeds and leaves, motionless like mannequins in a store window.

There’s a back-and-forth to all this, yet, because things do thaw during the day. The light may creep onto them at 9 or 10 or 11, and the twinkle of frost becomes a flash of wet. All day they bask in the warmth. Do they become relaxed, like a cat in the sun? Or have they started to get nervous about the shivering approach of evening? If it were me, living out there, I would be anxious.

These things, on the other hand—natural, outside things—are used to this changing, and they are adapted to it. Maybe they even need it. Isn’t there a side of me that needs the cold, hungers after the freezing? Winters low on the frost factor are lacking in satisfaction—for me, anyhow.

I think of the grape vines, how over the course of autumn, they suck their sap back, from the tips of their leaves, through branches, down into the trunk, and finally below the soil into the roots. Do you think they enjoy this somehow? Is this their version of cuddling up in bed with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book? They retreat to the darkest, warmest room of the house, cover up with a meter or two of good soil, and drink in the yummy minerals the snow brings along. They are relieved, perhaps, to put aside for a few months their appearances and their working. They rest, content to be and to appear only what they really are.

The entire landscape is utterly conformed to this likeness, to these bare bones; forest and field are filled with subtle color and gaunt silhouettes. Some call it sad; others, chilling. Some call it lovely.

“And what about us?” I can’t help asking, in a city with lights always on, and outdoor figures fluffed and stuffed, adorned and colorful. Where is our rest? Where is our nakedness? I feel outdoors a rhythm I don’t dare enter into, inside. No, it would alter me; it would change everything. I am afraid of it and not strong enough to give into it.