“Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.” Yoko Ono
Sunny, easy days are rarely remembered as they blend one into another, a halcyon bliss without struggle nor strife. These days of peace pass with little to disrupt them other than the passing summer shower. Endless enjoyment in the warmth and brightness of vacation.
Then comes the Fall.
And the Winter.
Cold, biting wind slicing to the bone and soul, chilling the blood and the spirit. It is a battle to find warmth, to grab a moment of comfort in the struggle against nature and night, darkness falling early and staying late, refusing to give hold to the feeble rays tentatively peaking over the horizon that illuminate more than inspire or empower. Chill in the limbs and the life, what little dares to venture out in this season when all good things slumber or fly south or have passed on like the butterflies and flowers that blossomed a seeming eternity ago.
Yet we remain.
We survive.
Hunkered in the darkness, sticking close to home and hearth and borrowing warmth from one another, somehow we make it through the dark nights.
Slowly the days lengthen, almost unnoticeably.
The weak sun climbs slightly higher day by day, and the worst of the winter retreats.
Some days, the breath does not cloud and ice and freeze.
A trickle of water as some ice thaws.
Then a rivulet.
Bits of brown appear, as the white blanket of winter is drawn back.
A touch of green.
Then shoots.
We have survived, and tell stories of the darkness we lived through.
We have persevered yet again in the cycle of life.