Outlasting Winter: Counting Days Until the Light Returns

I told my partner I might have to give up on the challenge. I have no winter rituals, no cherished traditions. Winter, for me, is not a season I celebrate. It is a season I survive.

“I’m basically half plant, half marmot,” I said, disguising my disappointment as a joke.

He laughed. It's his way of agreeing.

But it was not, in truth, a joke.

"But your whole winter is one ritual." he added. And I had to admit, he was right.

I am built for sunlight, fresh air and being outdoors. When the last of the autumn foliage disappears, it takes my brightness with it, as a token of my love. The world is drained of color. The sky turns gray and lightless. My body responds as if something essential has been misplaced, and it simply doesn't want to move.

I hang fairy lights through the house—not for Christmas, but to trick my body into believing it's sunnier than it is. The cold nests into my bones with the intimacy of a resented family friend. The damp winters, brown and snowless, make everything worse. I long for the winters of my childhood, when the snow was almost as big as me. I was small then, but it rose nearly to my parents’ shins. Now I am grateful if I see five snowflakes in a year.

Is it even winter without snow?

I may also make things worse for myself by having too much free time. My work is in forestry, and here in the Grand Est region of France, winters can be piercingly cold.

When the temperature drops to minus eight Celsius degrees, my toes go numb beneath the layers of socks, aching as if they might fracture with the next step. Once, in desperation, I hid heating packs in my boots. It didn't work.

Because I work for myself, and because I'm careful with money throughout the year, I can afford not to work from mid-December through most of January. You cannot plant trees in frozen ground or when it snows. Brush cutting becomes difficult. Logging is possible, I am told, but I am afraid of chainsaws and have not yet tested that particular courage. And so I stay home.

As you can imagine, this leaves me with ample time and energy to suffer.

I do have a winter bucket list, written during optimistic summer months: try to ski, learn ice skating, wander Christmas markets with roasted chestnuts and mulled wine burning my hands, travel somewhere where winter still behaves properly—or somewhere people have never heard of snow.

I have never crossed a single item off. Don't ask me why, I could never answer.

Over thirty-four years, I have developed some sort of winter remedy, though. I call it medicine, though it does not cure anything. No matter how faithfully I administer it, February still arrives with heavy thoughts I would rather not name.

Still, the ritual persists. It has to.

My winter survival kit is ever growing. If you wondered what it contains, it's nothing special, really.

My prescription requests cosy knitwear, and pretty scarves— one for the body, the other for the soul. Heat must be taken in regularly: tea, coffee, hot chocolate, chai, horchata... Fruit in the mornings, for the vitamins. And gooey melted cheese, at all hours. It must have something to do with the casomorphins.

Books are essential. At least three genres within reach, to suit shifting moods and needs. The laptop remains open, waiting—for writing, if the muse is kind, or for distraction in the form of games, if she is not. Short days require a movie. One a day keeps the doctor away, or something like that. Series are reserved for bed, a ritual shared with my partner and one that transcends seasons.

And there's a battery inside me, you see. It has to be charged daily, like an old Nokia.

When there is no snow, charging must be done manually and requires discipline. There's a calendar to count the days spent indoors. A walk must be enforced when the number of those days exceeds two.

For daily consumption, the kit includes chocolate and chips, though some have been replaced with apples and peanut butter. A bag of mixed nuts is also permitted.

The yoga mat remains rolled out; it's easier to step on it if I can't avoid it. Don't expect anything vigorous, though. My body feels broken from the year's work.

Every once in a while some devil possesses me, making me feel restless. I've found that jumping around to an aerobic video helps to exorcise it. Usually. The effect may last for three or four days.

In case of snow a secondary plan comes to life.

This is the time of relief. The task of counting the days is dropped. The devil that drains my energy stays away as long as the battery is kept outdoors. (Perhaps he lacks appropriate winter clothing.)

There is an invisible energy source outside that automatically connects—likely through some Wi-Fi-like mechanism—and recharges the battery with bio-energy and bright mood. One charge can sustain me for weeks, but only until the snow begins to melt.

And this is how my winter becomes a single, extended ritual: of outlasting the season. I do not light candles to welcome winter or to count the days until Christmas. I light them to keep myself warm. I count the days until spring arrives and the first green buds appear. I watch the light return, minute by minute, keeping count until one morning I realize the days are finally longer again.