The Shift to Winter

(Note:  The fourth posting about painting in France will appear next time.)

With Hallowe'en and that fine month of October over for the year, with November now appearing on the calendar, I find myself rather automatically shifting into That Other Life here in Vermont, here in the Northeast when it becomes apparent, once again, that the year is divided in two:  the green part and the white part.   With one about as long as the other.  With each its very own experience, so very unlike the other, as if half the year we're living in Iceland and the other half Mexico.  That's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

So, with November, this is what occurs, for me, at least.  The garden is now put to bed.  Each year I hire someone to come and tend it for me.  He carries the garden furniture into the cellar along with the flower pots that line my back deck.  He takes in the hoses and shuts off the water lines that feed their outside faucets.  He cuts back the dead ferns, does a final weeding, cuts back the peonies, blows dead leaves into my woods.  I, in turn, take my car to the dealer where they winterize it, rotate and balance the tires, change the oil, tend to any lubricants and filters, and make sure I don't intend to do much driving on icy/snowy roads or else, they say, I should buy snow tires.

Then there are the indoor things.  I put a flannel cover on my duvet. (Heavenly to sleep under.)  I make sure all the storm windows are in place. (I've long since ordered and paid for a winter's supply of fuel oil for my furnace.)  I buy a large non-scented candle to burn in the late afternoon hours to keep me company.  I buy yarn to knit a scarf or sweater since early darkness seems to lead me in that direction.  I buy ingredients to turn into favorite crockpot soups that fill the house with lovely aromas.  I put summer clothes in the cedar closet and retrieve winter ones.  I request even more inter-library loan books so that I'll be sure to have plenty to read on these long evenings since I rarely go out after dark.  I write up an early draft of a Christmas letter and go to our local copy shop with a new photo (usually of the grandchildren) to make up a batch of cards to send out. Doing so gives me a chance to reflect on the past year and to think about what the coming year might bring.  Then, too, these next weeks include birthdays for two in the immediate family.  (Including me.)   Finally, I get out my show shovel and set it on the front porch until April 15th when I always take it in again regardless of the April forecast which can, of course, include snow.

And with that, I'm ready for winter.

Birthday hors d'oeuvres

At first, I find the initial darkness that comes with restoring standard time to be pleasant.  I think of myself as being someplace like Norway.  It's fun at first.  The candlelight.  The hot soups.  The feeling of hygge (as the Danes call "coziness").  It also fits in with that lovely holiday, Thanksgiving.  And the head-spinning one that is Christmas.  But by the end of December, the whole darkness thing, the whole cold and icy thing begins to pall especially with a good three more months to get through.  Of course, the light returns with the solstice, with the first day of winter, but it takes those next three months to realize that lightness is, in fact, on its way.

Christmas Cookie Time

To complete the list, I feel a good fireplace would be in order.  Think I should send a note to Santa?