Battening down the hatches, alone
Another sign of the season shifting: turkeys are full-grown. My handsome flock.
I like autumn: the air has a special clarity, the light comes in at a sharpening slant, and you can see the shape of the land through the woods.
During all my years in the north country, I have also loved the feeling of getting ready for winter. Battening down the hatches.
Food is put up in freezers and jars, wood is stacked, chimneys are cleaned, the cookstove is warming the house, and I start to think about more sedentary projects I can work on guilt-free during the cold months–things I don’t do when the weather is warm and there’s so much to do outside in the garden or fields.
Snowshoeing and ice-skating, even the occasional snow shoveling and plowing, leave lots of time for those indoor activities I neglect the rest of the year–reading, writing, working with yarn, catching up with old friends.
I’ve lived alone at times during my life and I’m facing this winter alone, again. It’s different than preparing for the cold with a partner or housemate.
So here’s the question for those of you who have lived alone, or do now: what do you do to make those long quiet months of winter warm and secure, comfortable emotionally and physically? Particularly if you live outside of a village.
Let’s talk about making winter work for those who live alone.
Thanks.
This is a lovely post, very bittersweet. Was just having an irritable moment with my partner, but this made me stop and think. In the north country I suppose the internet is a lifeline during the winter.
Reading, music and work were the foundation activities of my time alone. In those years the internet was in its infancy and a dial-up connection made surfing the ‘net frustrating at best. I didn’t have, or want, an “idiot box”. Correspondence with old friends and family filled some time, as did cross country skiing when mother nature cooperated. For me physical activity is a key element to maintaining equilibrium. I filled odd hours with household “projects” and became quite adept in the kitchen and at baking breads. I found that a keeping a regular schedule was helpful.
Around the holidays was the most difficult time for me and I would often travel to spend time with extended family. The first few years are without a doubt the most difficult. Again, for me routine helped. Although I didn’t see it, according to my kids, I apparently became quite a “set-in-my-ways” curmudgeon that no one would ever want to live with.
Are those Bourbon Reds?
Here’s something you may want to try, and you could become addicted , but it’s a good thing. It’s called the morning pages ( from The Artist’s Way , Julia Cameron) you buy a 99 cent spiral notebook, fat lines, not college ruled, and you write, as soon as you get up, non stop 3 pages , front only. Even if you only write ” I don’t know what to write, over and over…it will all come out on the pages. I love the morning pages, I wrote through the death of my mother, and my little brother…morning pages, and art, probably saved my life on more than one occasion. Maybe you’ll like them….neeny