“Some winters happen in the sun,” says writer Katherine May in the opening chapter of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. The term Winter is the metaphor she uses for those dark and difficult times that we all experience. Winter comes in varying degrees of severity. As with nature, so with us, some winters are chilly and short lived; others are deeply cold and harsh, seeming to go on forever. 

We suffer the small winters of job losses, unfulfilled goals, and friendships or romances that don’t work out during our lives. Each time this happens, a “certain something” in us is saddened and feels diminished. But, if we imagine ourselves as a jigsaw puzzle, then these are simply a few small pieces missing. If the larger aspects of our identity are in place and we are in a healthy emotional and psychic space, these smaller winters pass quickly—usually replaced by a new job, a new goal, or a new romance. We are sad for a time and then find our way back into the world with renewed energy and determination. We let go and we move forward.

But Wintering with a capital W is another experience altogether. It is a place of confusion and withdrawal from the common world. It is a psychic-emotional and physical isolation that lasts longer. 

‘‘There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into Somewhere Else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on.’’

This Somewhere Else is a different emotional landscape beyond the normal time and place existence we’re used to. When we lose those closest to us or we lose a part of ourselves that holds deep meaning—a puzzle piece of us that is a large part of our identity structure—we are diminished beyond our own rational understanding. It’s as if we can feel ourselves shrinking, disappearing in some way, and we shut down. It is what the older folks would call “A Hard Winter.”

‘‘Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or a life event such as bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition and have temporarily fallen between two worlds…. However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful.’’

This Winter feels like drowning in a meaningless void. A shadow crosses over and merges into us—a deep grief or a dreaded fear runs through us. An unraveling of our known world begins. Terrified and dazed, we cannot find our footing or take the next step. We are in a Hard Winter; we’re entering the Somewhere Else that May describes—and we are alone in the cold. 

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times covers a period of 7 months in May's life, with chapters arranged from September through March.  The challenging period starts with a joyful celebration of her 40th birthday where her husband complains of feeling ill. He is hospitalized later that evening—his appendix bursting before doctors can operate. 

May, having recently given notice at her academic job, with the intention of focusing on creative pursuits, soon finds herself ill—eventually being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disorder.  Her son, only six years old, is struggling too. Bullying at school leads May to consider homeschooling. The summer dreams of creative pursuits quickly dissipate into darker visions of challenge and hardship.

One of the endearing elements of Wintering is May's personal honesty. "As one of the many girls of my age whose autism went undiagnosed, I spent a childhood permanently out in the cold," she writes. She suffered a major depression at 17, but, finally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, "I saw the chance to make myself new again." And she found “the seed of the will to live.” We are listening to a person familiar with Winter. Hers is a voice we can trust. 

As the book unfolds, May approaches these times of sadness and challenge with a great deal of self-compassion (and encourages us to do the same). She accepts that such periods are normal and even necessary in life. As someone interested in the world of nature and it’s rhythms, she finds lessons there that guide her through the sadness. 

Winter in the human soul can mirror winter in nature—it can be a time of rest and contemplation; it can bring out the best in us; it can teach us the value of others and ourselves—it can be a time of healing, of learning to endure. 

May helps us see that, like we trust Spring to return each year, we can learn to trust nature to heal us, and bring us renewal. To help us become ready to live again. ◊

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times   

By Katherine May

Riverhead Books, New York, 2020  $24.00 US

Reviewer: M. Colleen Mullins

This review originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2022 issue of Serenity Cafe Magazine. Reprinted by permission.

Photo Credits: Winter Scene, Courtesy of Andre Benz/Unsplash; Book Cover, Courtesy of Marissa Mullins.