On shedding the winter mindset
why is it so hard to do?
It’s Sunday morning and I’m standing in the kitchen holding the coffee pot, dumping its contents out into the sink. My spouse Janyce is standing in front of the closet door suited up in her heavy black coat.
“I think you should try my puffer jacket,” I say. “And you can layer it with my Champion one, too.”
I open a fresh bag of coffee beans and measure out three scoops for the grinder. Outside it is mostly brown. Brown tree limbs not yet showing the tinge of yellow-green buds to come. Brown oak leaves scattered in piles on the front lawn, matted down and soggy from the snow, now wet again from the late March mist that hangs in the air.
Earlier this morning, Janyce sat on the edge of the bed on the far right corner, like she used to do every Saturday, and read out loud from the latest chapter of Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows. She was fully dressed and had been for an hour at least, wearing her lichen green wool sweater and zippered hiking pants. I always love how Janyce is prepared for any event with the perfect sensible and attractive outfit. I can’t find a matching pair of socks these days. I don’t fit in clothes lately and I keep packing up items from my drawers to get rid of faster than I’m replacing them. I made a face when I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee while she was reading, mostly thinking about my laundry. “Yeah, the coffee was off today,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
Now, I grind the newly measured beans and turn to face her while she tries on the coats. “I look like the Michelin man,” she says. I’m thinking that these coats are three sizes too big for her but at least they have some flexibility.
I’m lagging a bit behind Janyce who is starting to shed her winter mindset, getting herself out there in the raw March weather. My life is changing and I haven’t yet figured out how to manage it. I’m approaching the end of my 50s, past the midpoint of middle age, and coming to the end of a good career that has served me well, but no longer makes sense to keep doing. I’m entering a stage of life where I can’t quite picture the contours.
The world does not proceed according to our plans. The world is an old dog, following us around the kitchen with its eyes. The world understands us. We understand nothing, control less. —Margaret Renkl
“You’re going to be too hot on the hike. Take a layer off and tie it around your waist,” I say. Our dog is sensing the change in the morning routine today as the coffee pot starts to gurgle and sputter. Being a fully embodied creature, she can feel the anxiety in the room as Janyce, now running late, tears off another coat and fumbles around in the hall closet.
The Indigenous author Kaitlin Curtice says, “when I was nine, I never learned how to listen to my own body…” Like many of us, she reacted to her own childhood experiences by breaking away from the body and becoming more comfortable inhabiting a life of the mind. But it is the wisdom of the body that I need to pay attention to for how it can get me back to my essential self. I learned how to live in my head, too, when I was younger. I know how to make plans and take charge. I tend to trust my intellect and if I don’t know something, I’ll find who to consult, what to read, and decide what to think about it when I’m faced with uncomfortable changes. What I don’t know how to do so well is to sit in silence and feel the discomfort. I don’t know how to be still and wait for something to come bubbling up. I don’t routinely trust my instincts— or sometimes even hear them.
“I could just wear this one,” she says, grabbing her own puffer, pulling it over her head. It fits very snugly over the wool sweater and I have to admit, it looks better. Function is not the only consideration with Janyce. It has to look good, too.
“This is what I was planning originally, but it’s not fully waterproof” she says.
“Take my black windbreaker,” I say. She tries that one on top of everything and the thinness of the fabric makes all the difference. I nod my approval and look out the kitchen window. The white sky looks stable. No rain will come. She will be her perfectly outfitted self throughout the hike, I think.
We say our “see you laters” and I suit up to take our dog out. Selene resigns herself to a morning without a walk and does her business quickly, taking her cues from me. I’m eager to rush back into the house, grab a fresh cup of coffee, and carry it back to bed. Shedding the winter mindset will have to wait another day.