first winter chill
That first winter chill. A cool breeze from the south penetrates your skin sinking deep into your bones. It makes your skin crawl, a shiver snakes up your arm, around your neck, down your spine. But it doesn't quite feel scary. It's exciting, even as you rub your arms and complain how summer always leaves so fast. It’s cold, yes. But it’s also freeing.
Winter gives space. It feels like your breaths are naturally deeper, longer. Like time is moving slower. Like every movement you make has to be intentional. Like you're seeing more of life, really experiencing it, rather than watching a blur of frenzied activity happen to you.
There's an air of anticipation. The construction anticipating a building. My breath anticipating being stolen. The hours that linger before the arrival of a party. Warm light beckoning for a movie. A cozy home with two cold bodies standing outside it. The tension of a thousand bodies in the dark the moment the lights shut off before the performance starts. Flying over a quiet world holding its breath before the chaos of an overcrowded airport. The pause between the first kiss and the “I love you.”
The chilly air tastes like possibility. Like anything can happen. Like everything will happen. It's the kind of feeling you get every once in a while when you step out of a gathering into a cold winter night, and it's completely quiet. And then you hear your soft breath. And if you stay for a few more moments, you find the sky opening up to a blanket of stars. And you see the soft yellow of the street lights blinking in unison. And you notice amidst the quiet, a steady drumming. A rhythm to the beat of your favorite song. Your heartbeat. One Two. One Two. Your reminder that your blood is flowing. That you’re breathing. That you're alive. That your life is exactly what you make of it now, in this moment, and in every moment.
Every once in a while, a step carries us out of the blitz of everyday life, the work and play and rest and work and work and work and play and play and play and existential crisis and back to work and play and etc., etc. I imagine it’s similar in intensity to how it feels to emerge from a sensory deprivation chamber into a bright summer day. Except the reaction is the opposite. We emerge from the overwhelming chaos of our lives and find ourselves in an empty space. A place where we don't feel the need to break out of it, to move onto the next thing, to distract ourselves with our devices and the next dopamine-filled activity and whatever and whoever else is in front of us.
At least for a little, we sit with that discomfort. We sit with the emptiness. We sit with the silence. And questions come bubbling up from our hearts that don't usually see the light of day. Who are you? What do you care about? What are you here to do? And would you sit here with me again?
I want to take a moment to honor these moments. I want to call your attention to them, to help you see the shape of them, to nudge you to notice them when you feel their familiar texture brush by your hand. I want to tell you to not take them for granted. To be grateful for the respite they offer. To take their shelter even when you feel like you should be going nonstop, that you should be working harder, pushing faster, striving further, loving deeper. I want to tell you this because I know that feeling, the urgency of needing to keep your foot on the gas, to excessively, obsessively accelerate. To fear what happens when you stop. To feel like your whole identity depends on going and going and going. But these moments are worth stopping for. These questions are worth sitting with. The emptiness, the silence, the stillness—they give solace when nothing else can.
So stop for a bit and sit with me, will you? I’ll get some tea going.
