Winter

I have forgotten Winter,

perhaps I blotted out her memory with Summer’s temper and heat.

Summer appears bright, but her scintillating aura is all-consuming; it brings to light what desires to stay hidden in the dark.

She is naively jovial and does not grasp that her burning light aches the human soul.

I sit and ponder, call to mind what Winter was like before Summer distracted me…

and I begin to remember.

Winter has always been a friend never a foe,

she encourages me to seek out solitude and comfort with her gentle icy touch.

She beckons me to sit close by the fireplace with a warm cup of peppermint tea and asks for nothing but silence.

Her wind is noise enough, and this is not the season for chaos or uproar…

Winter tells me to sit with the pain, and not judge it…

rather love it and knit up a warm sweater for it…

Summer has cast enough shame onto it,

now, with Winter, she reminds us: love the wounds, love the brokenness, and let what is just be.

As I hark back to Winter’s way, I recall what she once whispered to me on a snowy December night,

“Fall into the pain, confusion, and uncertainty. You will then fall in love with it all, and where there is love there cannot be pain nor fear…only peace and love.”

So my dear, fall into Winter and you will come out of that season madly in love with yourself and the frosty pains of life.

Michelle Tulik