The Other Dave Cameron

Tag: winter

  • Darkness Into Light

    The cold clear sky is still dark and full of constellations when I first look up through the kitchen skylight in early morning, the great ladle of Ursa Major emptying one final scoop of stars across the slowly fading darkness as dawn arrives. This is the period of longest nights, my favorite solstice, especially in the early morning.

    I always find something still and hopeful about reaching a maximum of darkness, knowing that you’ve reached the end, and now you can prepare for the journey back to light. I only recently realized that stillness – the sense of slowing to a halt, a pause in movement – is actually inherent in the word “solstice,” deriving from the Latin sol for sun, plus sistere meaning “to stand still” which is what our sun appears to do during any solstice, pausing at it’s most northern or southern limit before heading back the other way. It’s like that brief millisecond pause of weightless stillness at the top of a swing, just before you begin to fall back toward the ground, and your feel yourself float for a suspended moment off of the seat.

    Apogee. Nadir. Interpret it how you will. I like this idea of being at the top end of an arc, a pendulum swing about to be pulled back in the direction it came. Metaphors can be clunky sometimes, but really what I’m connecting with in this moment is the stillness.

    Apparently this idea of stillness, a pause across the Earth, is not limited to Western roots of thought or culture. The Winter Solstice has been part of Asian culture for over 2,000 years, particularly in China with Dongzhi festival which marks the “extreme of winter.” Philosophically, it is the end of the yin phase of the year, representing darkness, cold, and stillness, and thus celebrates the return of yang energy, the ascendence of light and warmth, and hopefully prosperity.

    Nowadays, Dongzhi is a traditional day to get together with family and friends and eat a lot of dumplings, and any occasion to eat a lot of dumplings seems like a good way to celebrate on a cold night. And so maybe that’s the best thing any of us can do today: eat some dumplings, say farewell to the darkest days, and look forward to the return of sunlight and warmth and blooming life. It is all ahead of us, just as before.

    I will focus on this feeling of hope and renewal and festive love. I am blessed with a lot of positive reinforcement around me right now, and I have a buffer of good vibes protecting me from the bummers of the world trying to take up worry space in my mind. I am keeping them at a distance for now and focusing on love instead. I have love to give, love to receive, and I hope that we will all see love reflected around us even more in the year to come.

    Today is the darkest day. It will get brighter in the weeks ahead.

  • Know When to Doldrum

    Let’s face it: February is exhausting. Every year I seem to hear people joking that this is the shortest month because if it was any longer we’d go crazy. In fact, people seem to have felt that way about February for almost as long as the month has existed.

    Snow Mountain Right now the town where I live and work is smothered in piles of snow that keep growing and won’t melt away. Woveling snow off my driveway is my new part-time job. Our cars are coated with ice and snow, their climate controls left constantly turned to high heat and defrost; black, crusty chunks of road spray freeze into wedges in the wheelwells that we kick off into parking lots and driveways, only to see them reappear like a snow fungus with each drive we take.

    All day and night, an endless mass of freezing air and wind sits upon us like an invisible, empty sea. We don’t walk as much as scurry from building to building, inhaling deeply to brace ourselves before we exit, then plunging into it with our armor of hats and scarves and gloves and puffy coats. Each arrival back in the warmth of a destination is announced with a short dance of stomping boots and exhaled huffs of relief.

    By mid-February, a day above 35F degrees is a joy. You feel confined by the elements, your movements limited, and efforts doubled. You may have a primal urge to stay indoors and burrow deep into a soft nest, envious of all the small mammals you sense curled into a state of torpor or hibernation somewhere in the dark. Everything seems to slow down, stagnate, as if Mother Nature has hit the pause button at the worst time, leaving us in a snowy limbo until she decides to let the seasons advance once more and set us free.

    Welcome to The Doldrums.

    (more…)

  • Coat. Hat. Gloves. Repeat.

    Being really cold in winter is nothing new to me. I’ve lived in the Northeast of the U.S. of all my life, and January to February of every year seems to have at least one solid week of single-digit to below-zero temperatures we must endure, intermingled by “mild” days where it may get up to 40 degrees. Good times.

    The challenge of winter then is in trying to be prepared on any given day for not just how cold or wet it is when I leave the house, but also how that may change during the day.

    I’ve lived in Ithaca, NY for more than a decade, where the topography of steep hills carved by gorges overlooking a lake makes for some stunning scenery, but also creates a microclimate that can change our weather dramatically from one hour to the next depending where you are. It’s not uncommon to see it snowing ferociously over the campus where I work on the slope of South Hill, while only a light flurry falls on the flats of downtown half a mile below. Weather forecasts really are more of a guideline, which means taking precautions.

    In winter, I’ve learned that there are only three important items I need in to be warm and comfortable no matter how cold it gets: the right coat, a warm hat, and warm gloves. I’ve also learned over the years that a warm hat and gloves are two of the easiest things to misplace or forget in the hubbub of getting to and from home and work.

    But that’s not a problem any more because I’ve got a nearly foolproof method to be sure I’m never without the accessories I need to stay warm in any situation… (more…)