No matter how I try to prepare for it, the transition from fall to winter always manages to stagnate me. I’m perpetually cold, I feel lazy and apathetic, and I can’t even remember the gung-ho October person I used to be. Usually “just put your walking shoes on” is my standard method of getting myself out the door every day, but lately, I haven’t even managed that.

“Maybe,” a friend says, “that’s what this season is supposed to bring.”

Fine, fine, I think, but dragging myself through the grocery store a few days before Thanksgiving I lock eyes with an older woman passing me in the baking aisle. She raises an eyebrow toward my bulging cart and says, “The holidays are different for women, aren’t they?”

Oh yes they are, my friend, yes, they are. No matter how much simplifying and minimalising I do, there is just always going to be a war between the demands of family and cultural expectations and the creaturely, animal part of myself that wants to burrow down and get soft and warm this time of year.

Since I can’t disappear into a den and sleep the next two months, I’ve been making small concessions to this reality - allowing my writing disciplines to slip, doing more yoga and less walking, pushing pause on the long list of household projects, giving in to an impulse purchase here and there. It feels good to be softer with myself, to be human and needy and not always pushing toward a goal. Maybe that’s the gift of entering winter I can embrace.

. . .

Since I haven’t been around much these last few weeks - and I’m a bit out of the blogging habit - a random list of things occupying my mind and attention, just for fun:

• I met this year’s reading goal over the summer. Now I’m at 89 books and hoping to push to 100. Currently reading, Diary of a Young Naturalist and A Place in Time (which I’m going to have to put down for awhile because I just got The Witch’s Heart from the library, finally.)

• This cookbook is absolute magic. I can’t stop talking about it. And baking. And baking.

• Speaking of baking, I hate to say this, but I’ve been getting weary of the “build a skyscraper out of choux pastry” approach to the Great British Baking Show (couldn’t we just have beautiful and edible baking instead?) But this season won me over again. The cast was just SO GOOD! (Although they could use another female host, I think. Am I the only one who feels like the 12 year old boy-humor is getting a little tiresome?)

• Speaking of television, we started watching The Wheel of Time* and I am really enjoying escaping into a straightforward fantasy series. Also, the clothes are so good. Could I start wearing the pants/overskirt/embroidered tunic thing, do you think?

• Totally into handcrafts right now. This sweet video (the basket of scraps and thread, so inspiring!), this mending technique.

• My sister turned me on to a totally irreverent, slightly crass, funny podcast about health fads and the wellness community. This one about celery juice and the Medical Medium had me laughing all morning. I also enjoyed this one about how the wellness community got sucked into QAnon.

• Just going to leave this right here in case you, too, need to tear down some old fantasies/expectations about what it means to be a good friend/parent/citizen/kind human.

There you go: food, books and TV, and nothing too taxing. I hope you are all well. I know there are some emails I haven’t answered and some people I need to reach out to. If you’re one of them, thanks for being patient with my seasonal ineptitude.

If you’re so inclined, share your own winter pleasures and inspire the rest of us!

Note: I’m sorry Squarespace makes commenting such a pain. I know some of you don’t comment because of all the hoops you have to jump through. I’ll do some research and see if I can add a third party comment host and eliminate all that. Later. In the new year. ;)

Much love,

tonia

(*Another indulgence. I usually boycott all things Amazon.)