I simply imagined winter…

Wisdom comes with winters.    — Oscar Wilde

I am not immune to the seasons. In fact I’m rather like a farmer, or a flower bulb or a migrating bird in that I respond to the change in light, temperature and the axial tilt of the earth. I love the long warm days of summer and the beach is my home where the sea draws me in on those impossibly hot days of the mid-season. I wait for the southerly breeze that brings the temperature down enough on those heat fill days to barbeque tender lamb and toss enormous lemony salads and eat into the long twilight. Summer is the season for cold gin and tonics, crips white wines and freshly peeled prawns. Outdoor feasting, lazing on sandy towels and long days of leisure. It is a glorious time. It is freedom.

But all good things end and autumn, although quite fickle in Australia, comes along eventually. The temperature drops, the leaves fall and sandy feet reject their nakedness for sensible coverings. Sometimes that just means wearing socks with your Birkenstocks. T-shirts are replaced with a long sleeve version and possibly the jeans are dragged from the back of the cupboard. We don’t get too hysterical here in the south of NSW. Other places need to dust off the jumpers, and some need the puffer jacket that will form part of the cool season uniform. But not here. Often we swim well into the season of falling leaves, mainly because the water temperatures are at their best into April. In Autumn we consider an extra blanket on the bed, we hold off on the thermal doona (duvet) until May. Or later.

And autumn ends. Winter comes. And initially I think I love winter. Or what I imagine winter to be. I get that delicious feeling of long cosy evenings curled up with books, firelight, woolly socks and hot steaming drinks. Long overcoats and soft scarves that wrap around the neck and face, matching woollen hats with frivolous pompoms. (It’s almost a Sound of Music song).

And I’m also quite delusional. Because this love of winter is quite short lived. It lasts until a cold breeze blows on me, and then I’m done. So I imagine I love the season of dormancy and rest. I think I enjoy the low sun that barely warms the ground, the short days, the icy winds, the pelting rain, the soggy earth and life on hold…but I am lying to myself. I simply romanticise the joys of winter…it must be a writer thing.

Now those who know me well always say ‘but you grew up in Tasmania…. how come you can’t stand the cold.’ Well surprisingly I’m neither a penguin nor a polar bear…I’m not genetically programmed to exist in the cold. And heads up people…Tasmanians feel the cold! My first teaching job was on the west coast of Tasmania. It was both freezing and wet. I spent two years dressed in a Japara* and wellies. I’d trudge from my little flat to the school like a Michelin man and gradually peel off the layers the further indoors I went. I kept my ‘teacher shoes’ under my desk and only removed boots and two pairs of sock just before the first bell. I was COLD. I also worked in the central midlands where if you went outdoors in winter with wet hair any time before school started you would literally, I don’t mean figuratively, form icicles on your head.

‘But you worked in Canberra for years’…yes I did and my power bills were astronomical and I’m still tortured by the early morning duties in frozen playgrounds where the fog was so thick I only knew children were present because I could hear them!

While a writer is prone to hyperbole, in this matter, I kid you not. I’m very happy to write about the wisdom gained by the stillness of winter, the lazy wind that blows through your very soul, the crunch of frost under foot and the gentle lap of snow flakes that swirl poetically about one’s head. I happily conjure the bliss of fires blazing their radiating heat into one’s bones, the serenity of silent streets and the comfort of hot chocolate warming both hands and belly. But living it…not so keen.

But winter is here. It comes no matter how I try to resist it. No matter how whimsically I may describe the chilly season in my writing I spend a good amount of time in hopeful reflection of the spring that will inevitably come and dreaming of the delights of summer that will, and without any effort from me, follow in quick succession.

So for now I will accept that winter is a good time for writing. The outdoors has less appeal, the low sun from the north bathes my desk in tepid light and I’m quite enamored with my new socks (Mongrel socks from Tasmania). I’ve discovered the joys of sticky chai and found an old jumper from deep within the wardrobe that is miles too big but allows for several layers beneath it. I will not freeze.

And perhaps in the interest of full disclosure, it is the first month of winter and today is 21 ℃ The sky is blue, the breeze faint and I have little to complain about. However, should the wind blow….

*Japara-a cotton-lined oil skin jacket