winter morning

I come from a long line of confirmed, even passionate, winter-phobes. My dad hated winter because it was too dark and cold to play golf. My mother hates winter because it might ice, causing tree branches to snap and make a mess and frozen pipes to burst and when she can finally get a plumber, he will charge her a goddamn fortune, and she already has plenty to worry about, thank you very much. My brother moved to Southern California, opting out of winter altogether.

I have always hated winter because I live in the South, where the slightest threat of one flake of snow or ice turns grocery shopping into a full-contact sport. It turns the roads into a dystopia of ice, potholes, and collective vehicular stupidity. It shuts everything down, wrecks my yard, and screws with my plans. And here in Arkansas, snow is rarely the fluffy kind that you can romp around in. It mixes with ice and slush and freezes over at night. The kids still want to play in it, of course, and we must let them, which means a Facebook news feed full of tons of adorable photos of kids on toboggans pulled by four-wheelers or smiling proudly beside anemic, slushy, seemingly meth-addled, 15 inch tall snowmen. It also means nonstop piles of wet, cold laundry.

This year, though, my attitude toward winter has started to shift. I first noticed it a few weeks ago during an ice storm. I had been burning the candle at both ends and in the center for months, with no end in sight. As the freezing rain fell and glazed everything over, instead of feeling the sense of dread that usually accompanies such weather, I felt a sense of relief. This would break the free-fall. This storm was an escape hatch, and I had no idea how desperately I needed one. I suddenly found myself doing something I'd never done before. Instead of dread, I felt gratitude, as though a friend had come to rescue me. I embraced it.

After that, despite a polar vortex that brought single-digit wind chills, I did not find myself stomping around, resentful of the cold. I just pulled my cozy snow boots out, dug my cashmere-lined leather gloves out from the bottom of the "winter chest", added another layer, and went on with my life. Early morning workouts went on as normal. Lunch with friends. How about this cold? I take joy in my newly-established winter routine: if I don't have an evening meeting, I come home, start a fire, start a kettle, start dinner, hunker down with the WP and the dog. I feel warm and happy.

I have recently learned that the Danes have a word for this thing: hygge. It has no direct English translation. It's more of a feeling - of coziness, warmth, camaraderie. In Denmark, winters are long, brutally cold, with about six hours of sunlight a day at winter's peak. Yet Danes are, according to the United Nations, the happiest people on earth. Their cold winters provide opportunities to lean in, hunker down, eat, drink, be merry, appreciate each other's company, or just sit by a fire with a cup of coffee and appreciate the quiet beauty of winter.

This morning, my alarm went off at 5:15. I got out of bed, threw on a comfy pair of drawstring pants and top, rolled out my yoga mat, and did a slow but challenging yoga practice. Midway through my practice, I received a text message from the WP's school - they're on a two-hour delay. Beautiful. I finished my practice, made myself a cup of tea, took a nice hot shower, moisturized (that's so important in winter, you know), wrapped myself in the Colonel's softest plaid flannel robe, and crawled back into bed. It is raining, softly. The blue light of morning and a candle on my nightstand provide the only illumination. Outside my window, the Japanese maple in my front yard has been transformed into a twisted, crystalline statue, a darkly romantic still-life of branches encased in ice.

Everything is quiet. Lily briefly pokes her head into my room. Mom? she asks. What time is it?

It's a little after seven, I tell her.

Isn't it a school day?

Yes. You don't have to be at school until ten. So you can go back to bed for a bit, if you want.

She smiles and exits as quietly as she had entered. Quiet once more. There are few things I love more than a dark, quiet morning that starts very, very slowly.

Winter, I think we are going to be friends after all.