Cold

Full confession: I love winter. I capital L Love it. Sure, I'm a February baby so I might be a bit biased, but the aesthetic of winter is endlessly inspiring to me, and its kinaesthetic properties propel my body and mind forward in primal ways. We took our tree down a little late this year, and now that the glittery trappings of the holidays have been packed away; the tree is gone to the great wood chipper in the sky, the sentimentally-charged ornaments have been boxed for another year, the true nature of wintertime is beginning to show itself in silvery light of overcast days illuminating the newly open space in our apartment. It's like the tree was holding space for a minimalist approach to the new year, but it feels a bit like that to me every year. 
Because I've been working from home lately, this winter has felt more compelling than any in recent memory, and I've been feeling quietly energized by it. 

I've lived in two somewhat different environments for the majority of my life thus far, so I have a contrast frame for what winter was and what winter now is. Living in southern Ontario, next to Lake Ontario (like, right next to Lake Ontario) has been a winter experience completely opposite of that season of my childhood in western Quebec. While only 600 km separates the two locales, the weather patterns and winter experiences are vastly different.

From our walk today. Lake Ontario, looking towards Hamilton from Tannery Park at around 4:15 pm.

Lake Ontario rules winter here, rarely bringing lake-effect snow, and more often bringing lake-effect insulation, so winters on the lakeshore are typically snowless, raw-windy and leaden grey skied affairs. Sunshine is intermittent, weird temperature patterns are frequent, and the fresh, snow-cleansed air quality of a deep-woods winter is non-existent, replaced by the dusty, industrial and chemical smells of urban living, periodically cut through with a bitter, nose-stinging wind. The palette is all-grey; which I adore, but I would be the first to say that it takes a certain mindset to appreciate the beauty of extremely limited resources. The dark to light, wind-swept skies, the moody depth of the wave-rippled lake, the salt-scoured street pavement, drab patterned bark and branches, weak January sunshine in the late afternoon, these are all lovely palettes and patterns to contemplate, but when compared against the brilliant blue skies, glowing green pine forests and shimmering indigo and pearlescent snowscapes of the Gatineau Hills, this palette can seem almost oppressive in its monotony. In my creative experience, the key to surviving and harnessing inspiration in a southern Ontario winter is to look for the subtleties. Wool socks help too.

It's -4˚C today, so a typical winter day. We don't really have heating in our apartment save for a few tiny space heaters, so I have on 2 layers plus a lovely large scarf wrapped around me, jeans and the nicest merino wool trail socks (a thoughtful Christmas gift from my parents.) In this ensemble, I am on the cool side of completely comfortable (although probably not on the cool side of fashion...)

So many people I know who grew up in southern Ontario hate winter. It wasn't ever an option to me to hate it. I wasn't taught to. My parents, who would occasionally complain about driving in snow, shovelling snow, or how much snow the dogs would track in, were otherwise very open to their enjoyment of the season. I mean, how can you hate a season? Isn't that part of what makes Canadian life unique, that we (generally) have access to seasonality? We celebrate the actual changes in season ad nauseum: spring is here! hello summer! pumpkin-spice errything! it's time for holiday sparkle! While I get that winter sets up our longing for spring, and we loveLoveLOVE summer (we do live in an area rather cultish about its love of cottage life) and that fall is lovely and romantic, I can't help but notice that around these parts, there's little love for the true nature of winter, mostly as a result of its fickle nature. But it's pointless and exhausting to hate a thing you can't change. It's easier to accept it. Yes, it's cold, but that's where the wool socks come in to play. Again, why fight it? Put on another sweater, bundle the fuck up and get out into it. Cold wind is the best remedy to those vague, persistent, anxiety-related headaches that we all get. The throb of warm working muscles during a cold walk/snowshoe or ski can bring on a high that you will never find in a gym (this is true functional fitness my friends - learning to endure, thrive and be active in very cold weather.) Feeling the comfort-void of winter weather is essential to helping you enjoy the cozy privilege of winter home life (or hygge, as the Danes and Norwegians call it - a quick Instagram search will show you just how fashionable hygge has become this year...) 
There's a reason why we don't enjoy hot chocolate in the summer...

I took this photo at the halfway point of our New Year's day snowshoe hike...right at the point where we realized that we'd been hiking downhill for the past hour...O_o
This was a gorgeous hike, even if it was a bit tougher on the way back. The invigorating yet relaxing sensation of your warm blood pumping through your chilled limbs continues on long after you've retired indoors from the cold - to me, it is the best kind of exercise high. 

Creatively, I've always thrived with boundaries. I like the challenge of 'do the best you can with what you have', and winter doesn't give up a whole lot to work with. But the silvery light of day propels me to be as physically productive as possible, so that the quieter, darker hours of afternoon and evening can bring bouts of brain-storming, planning, designing and researching. My chilly apartment makes me thankful for the fiery warmth of soldering, the repetitive exertion of hammering and sawing that I build working in my unheated/unairconditioned studio; by contrast, there are days in the summer that are entirely too hot for studio work, where after 2 hours of working in incredible heat with only intermittent fan use to cool me off (you can't solder with a fan on you!) I end up so heat-exhausted, my brain doesn't even work. Winter is actually my spring - my brain becomes alive, during the day my body is ready to take advantage of any moment for action and at night, I turn inwards to discovery and rest, and the known boundaries: the limited light, sparse palette, tenuous comfort and effort to accessibility all seem to stoke my creativity to an inferno. 

Add 2 more pairs of earrings to this, and two more rings and a bracelet in the works, this represents the amount of work that I have completed in the second week of January. I have more ideas that I have minutes in the day in the winter...

I suppose all this is to say that one of the biggest lessons I've really embraced in the past year, (though I don't really think I've been taking it on consciously) is to decide to find some enjoyment in each day, in the boundaries, in the comfort-void. Broadly, it's meant finding enjoyment in aspects of my environment, nature and the season; specifically it's meant actually allowing myself the opportunity to do so. When I was working in an office full-time, most of my moments of memorable daily enjoyment were those moments when I left the office for the frigid cold, in a seemingly wild contrast to the warm but numbing work of the office. The cold would wake me back to myself, so I started to seek it out on the daily. I had to to keep myself alive. Because I am no longer doing numbing work, the cold has become more companion than catharsis. We go out each day into it willingly, we look forward to it, because the comfort-void outdoors helps us appreciate the comfort within; inside our home, studio, and within ourselves. 
I love winter.