New year, first day, and -- uh-oh, here it comes. Time to box up all that magic we conjured for the holidays. Our dreams for the coming year stand in sharp relief, but it's time to square our shoulders to face the lesser enchantments: taxes, temperance, stacks of bills.
In January in my home state of Ohio, we shudder beneath thousand-pound cinderblock skies. The sun enters a period of mere myth. We can only imagine that it blazes somewhere over meadows of leaping unicorns. Perhaps it does not love us anymore.
This dullness takes place at exactly the time when there doesn't seem like a single thing to look forward to on the calendar, unless you care about the Super Bowl. I forget, which kind of comfort is that -- cold or none?
Back when our kids were young, my husband would helpfully haul out a German saying on the night before they returned to school after vacation. Carlo's immigrant parents had chirped the words to him when he was a boy: "Morgen fängt das strenge leben an." Tomorrow the strict life begins.
Oh, hooray.
We haven't yet had our first life-interrupting blizzard of the winter, but it's just a matter of time, and there is always more than one. Come the weeks and months of street slush spattered black by exhaust. Comes the dog trembling on her haunches as she does her shivery business in the snow. Comes the groaning furnace.
Let us not even discuss the virus. For once.
A good Buddhist might advise us simply to be with the gray, to sit with the blah, and there is merit in that approach. Those of us in regions that experience four distinct seasons ought to come to terms with the quiet purpose of winter, during which our work can feel dreary and nature's rewards can seem scant. Winter is for slumber. Hibernation. A necessary rest that enables spring's crazy, jubilant return.
But since I am not a Buddhist, good or otherwise, I can't help but consider a few morsels of hope from the natural world. I like to think about these on days when I am convinced that winter -- as both a season and a mindset -- will last for all time.
First, the light.
In Cleveland, sunlight will increase by about 46 minutes between now and the end of this month, and that holds for most places. It's a miracle. Most of the extra light will be added at day's end. True, in cloud-covered regions such as ours, extra sunlight in winter feels a tad theoretical. We move from slag heap to old hubcap. Still, 7pm will stop feeling like midnight, and I call that progress.
Second, consider sunlight on snow.
Years ago, our friend Spike instigated a group hike around Holden Arboretum on a frigid winter day when the sun paid an uncharacteristic visit and turned the blanketing snow into to a twinkle-lit fairyland. All seasons can be showoffs. Sunlight on snow is winter's response to summer's perfect beach day, and we are meant to luxuriate in the magic, because it will be as fleeting as 82-degrees-and-low-humidity.
Third, the Great Horned Owls are planning babies.
Right now, while you are perhaps sipping a hot beverage and weighing the pros and cons of discarding the cookies, a pair of Great Horned Owls is finding some other birds' old nests, or rehabbing a tree hollow, and getting ready to welcome the first bird babies of the year by February or early March.
GHOs are the first in our area to breed. Sure, this is an Ohio-centric fact, but something like it is true wherever you are. Animals understand that there is no such thing as the never-ending winter. When you lose your faith, just remember that something with feathers is nearby, and it is preparing for spring with a vengeance -- as if warmer, brighter days will be here in the blink of an eye.
Because they will.
So that’s what I’ve got from nature right now, but I’m certain it holds other hints of optimism for us. I plan to find more and report back, because the Super Bowl — well, it just isn’t enough.
Happy New Year, friends. It might seem too extravagant to hope that 2022 will be blessed and bright, but let's be brave and hope so anyway.