Downhill, and up again

It happens every year. And every year I forget.

After summer solstice, I begin a leisurely walk downhill. The slope is gradual. Not something I notice at all.  Feels like level ground. So easy.

But after winter solstice, something happens.

I wake up, and look behind me. I see how far, how deep into the valley I’ve walked.

I look ahead, and the path out of the valley seems long, and somehow steeper.

Some people say, “Get out more.  Be more social. Use a happy lamp. Get more exercise.”

There’s some truth there. Particularly here in Alaska, it’s dangerous to be naïve about the darkness of winter. Valleys can become seemingly inescapable canyons.

But there’s also something to be said for following the terrain of the seasons, for living like a bear—gorging on summer’s abundance, sleeping through winter’s deprivation.

I really, truly don’t know.

I do know that right now I’m on the uphill path, walking out of the valley into the light.

How about you?

 

Photo by Gretchen Fitzenrider

 

Whistlebird in spring

I do not know your name
but you sound like a coach’s whistle
at a soccer practice
somewhere across the valley.

Irritation at your constant calling
finds balance here:
among blackened snow piles,
your song promises green.

We gotta lotta snow

Anchorage is three inches from breaking the winter snow record––and here in the Girdwood snow forest we have far more than they do. Alyeska Resort reports 768 inches of snow since October 1.

When I went out to clear off the car this afternoon, the snow in the parking lot around the car came up to my knees––and it was still snowing.

A rose in the wintertime

Tonight I feel profoundly discouraged.

My life stretches out in front of me, never different, never better, just longer.

Sometimes colliding events steal the joy of living. Tonight disappointment swirls into biochemistry and the increasing darkness of early winter. Snow and freezing rain coat the Seward Highway from Girdwood to Anchorage, pushing my driving phobia into panic mode, cutting me off from UU friends in town.

During this first part of Alaskan winter, when each day get darker and shorter, the walls close in, and “hope is hard to find” (as the song says).

Then winter solstice comes, a misleading moment of joy in the return of the light.

There’s still a lot more winter on the other side of solstice. Yes, there’s more light every day, and increasing energy comes with more light. But snow and ice keep building, and we don’t see anything green and growing until mid-to-late May. In their own way, the long months of lingering winter after solstice are just as dispiriting as the darkening days before solstice.

People who have never lived in Alaska often ask us, “How can you stand the winters?”

I have a stock answer––I talk about having hobbies, staying busy, getting outdoors when the sun’s out.

But there’s a deeper answer. Winter teaches perseverance. It teaches the hard-won skills of endurance and persistence, of doing what you don’t feel like doing, because the alternative feels worse.

So on nights like tonight, I move the laundry along, pay the bills, and take Brady with me on a short walk across the street to the post office. I write a post like this one, to get the toxic feelings out of my system, and I make dinner for Liesl and me.

I don’t feel like doing any of those things. I’d rather just curl up under a blanket in the dark. But I know from long experience that the blanket is false comfort. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, and keep moving, keep doing the right thing.

There’s also some self-nurture involved in surviving Alaskan winters. We’ll probably watch a movie tonight, one that will take me out of myself, distracting me until the mood passes.

And it will pass. That’s the lesson of the turning wheel of Alaskan seasons. Long as the winters are, spring does come, and glorious summer, full of light and Sitka roses.

Photo by Gretchen Fitzenrider.