Winter Is Meant to Be Slow

Photo: Annika Thierfeld

This winter is the coldest I can remember in years. I stay in for days on end, wrapped in layers of blankets, watching from the safety of my home as the world gets coated in snow and ice.

The dark is the worst part. On the days when I have to go to the office, the morning commute takes place at the bluest hour, and the trip back home is after dark. I get to watch the grey daylight of winter through the giant windows of my LED-lit office, and once I’m done with work, I step into what seems like a never-ending night to go home to my cat and my bed. There are no post-work activities on office days, no detours to the mall or the bookstore. Best I can do is pet store and grocery shopping, because they are on my way home.

It gets better on weekends. I don’t work, so the world is mine to conquer between 10 AM and 5 PM — and if I happen to still be outdoors at 4:30, I rush to make it home by 5 like Cinderella fleeing the ball at midnight. It’s still cold as hell, though, and the will to conquer anything other than my bed is low, extinct almost. I bought a movie ticket the other day to incentivize myself to make use of a Saturday and go outside, and still, I couldn’t leave my apartment. You must understand. My cat is here. She demands a four-hour-long siesta under a blanket, during which she will purr into my neck and occasionally sigh with the kind of anguish only a non-rent-paying, unemployed, responsibility-free family member can understand. There’s a bottle of Sheridan’s in the kitchen and a book of murder mysteries to solve. I’ll see Hamnet another time.

My employer doesn’t share my sentiments. I was expected back at the email factory three days into the new year, rested, replenished, and ready to slay at my KPIs. It has never felt more unbearable or unjust to do the work I’m literally being paid to do, let alone do it well. Everything, from commute to yoga to writing this post (I started weeks ago, I’m not even joking), takes me five times the effort it would take me, say, in April. All because Julius Caesar and that other Roman guy thought it a good idea to make the year start in January, the very epicentre of the coldest season.

Nature knows better than that. Trees shed their leaves, and animals rest and conserve their energy, because this is a sustainable survival strategy developed over god knows how many years — and it does the job. Humans, it seems, didn’t get the memo. There’s no time to slow down in winter any more than there is in spring, summer, or autumn. So we arm ourselves with Theraflu, coffee, and vitamin D supplements and do our best to keep up with the pace of the world. The one percent are counting on us. The wheels of capitalism won’t spin themselves.

I’ve decided, however, that it’s perfectly acceptable to do the things I have to do, but do them barely. And to be sulky about it. And to text my work bestie with “why does god send his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers” four times a week.

I’ve decided that it’s absolutely fine to spend six weeks on a mediocre, but very satisfying post about how cold, unproductive, and sun-deprived I am — after not writing anything for months.

I’ve given myself permission to feel strongly that fifteen minutes of very gentle yoga is a decent enough workout that has more than earned me the right to collapse in bed with a book, tea, and cookies. And if animals can snooze a whole season away, I will keep pressing that snooze button every weekend without an ounce of shame and get my eleven hours of sleep.

I want my winter to be as slow as I need it to be. Because this is what it’s meant to be like — slow and quiet. This is what I remind my best friend of when she shares with me her struggles to make herself study for exams. It’s what I remind my sister of when she tells me she has no energy to do things.

And it’s what I remind myself of when haunted by everything on my last week’s to-do list that had to be moved to this week. When the guilt for not doing enough creeps in, it’s crucial to remember that, as creatures of this earth, we’re not immune to its processes. We’re not immune to the darkness or the stillness of winter. The kindest thing we can do for ourselves in these coldest of days is to accept nature’s sacred laws, follow its ancient ways, and allow our lives to slow down as much as it is realistically possible.

Go have a slow winter, y’all. We’ll regroup again in March.