Write the Light Into the Darkness of Winter

It's *not* snowing near NYC (yet)! But I've had the most lovely opportunity to prepare for a beautiful winter this year. 

This is not always my M.O. Resistance often sets in at the reversal of daylight savings in early November. And dread descends when the temperature drops. 

But a dear friend, Natasha, has helped change that this year. She invited me to teach with a powerhouse community of women for a monthlong workshop she is hosting in December: Opening to the Medicine of Winter.

As a writer intent on re-writing out-of-date narratives (and helping others to do so, too!), I was somewhat aghast to realize that it never dawned on me to investigate the stories I tell myself about winter! 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity. And now my orientation to the months of November through March is undergoing the most marvelous revision. 

This, of course, made me think of a story....

We've already established that winter has not been my favorite season.
 
But one winter night in 1996 the east coast was slammed with a blizzard. I was in my late-twenties and living in New York City. Close to two feet of snow fell on Manhattan. The city that never sleeps was completely stilled by Mother Nature.

Cars disappeared under white mounds. Streets were shut down. People took to cross country skiing down Avenue A in the East Village.

The city and its thoroughfares became an uncharted wilderness. There were no taxis to narrowly avoid. Work and shopping took a back seat. Desire and instinct took on new dimensions.

New Yorkers were drawn out of their famously too-small apartments to rediscover their snow-covered, high-rise-filled island. I disregarded walk signals and roamed the streets in whatever direction drew me. The rush of delight at having everything upended was intoxicating.
 
But it didn’t take very long before the plows took to the streets. Beeping trucks shoved the thick white blanket toward street corners, which created four huge mounds at every intersection.

Everyone now had to navigate treacherous mountains of slippery snow to simply get from one side of the street to the other. Getting around became dangerous. It took full-body focus. You could easily wipe out. 
 
Then an interesting thing happened.

New Yorkers began to help each other get up and over the hills of snow. A random person coming from the opposite direction would lock hands with you as you helped each other navigate up and over. You had to look each other in the eye. You had to have physical contact and a degree of closeness. There was sometimes a sheepish or awkward or hearty laugh. And there was someone else was on the other side to help you come down. 
 
For a period of a few days this unfolded easily and naturally. Then, as the snow began to melt, people returned to their regular routines, brushing by one another in the rush to get from one place to the other. 

This is what I'm left with thinking back to that unexpected late-winter delight: the Blizzard of '96 rejiggered my place within what poet Mary Oliver calls ‘the family of things.’ It helped me to see what I had forgotten to look for – the fact that every moment can be a wilderness and each person, myself included, can act in beautiful and unexpected ways.

Yes, it helps when the sky dumps inches or feet of snow and shocks us out of our habits. But it also serves as a reminder that I can ignite that possibility in any moment, too.