Winter winds blowing, classical music playing. The trees are bare, mixed with stout evergreens; light browns mixed with the sage greens of the moss that decorates their chilly limbs. I appreciate this life, this movement. A fire is necessary, and brewing in the stove. The coffee is also made, and the morning is dark, somber, sustained. My inner life is active and dances to the melody of the notes, accompanied by the ballet of the trees in the autumn winds. It is technically fall in the Pacific Northwest, but we consider November and December winter months, as the weather is continuously murky, windy or rainy with cool temperatures in the forties. This says winter to us.

Winter also says community. We come together on an Island that is blessed and plagued with tourism in the “on” season. We all turn our engines up, work harder as artists, craft people and restaurant and service workers during the summer months. When the season culls in September, October, life becomes more sustaining, more grounded; accented with the inward pull of the changing season. We all call Polly or another firewood provider and stalk up and prepare our hearths, some at the last minute. Turning inward, we find friends that we had forgotten were friends. We are less distracted and there is less excitement on our small island. All the textures, tunes and different colors of us Island folk begin to blend and merge. Life becomes about community, keeping warm, keeping our hearts jovial, and blessing our homes with our much needed presence.

I feel more grateful for the dark, chilly, wet and somber season that is upon us than any year in my past. I am reveling in the quiet darkness that sets in at five, the small amount of family and community bustle around the holidays, and yet am reminded to take care of myself. I can do and be what my heart desires. I can become selfish. This selfishness usually benefits those that are closer to me, though when the selfish moments entail mistakes, they still allow me time and solitude to figure myself out. I value both mental and physical reflection and healing. But selfish is a word that resembles a blessing on this winter stoop where I am sitting. I am not afraid of solitude, and I encounter friends around each corner as I plod around this island, sometimes glowing, sometimes spinning, and sometimes festering. But it is all a blessing and I find God even in the doubt. My needs are few, my hope is large, my time exists to a cadence that matches those bending deciduous and prancing conifer. Take me in, take me closer, meld with my spirit and teach me a lesson. How do I bend with what can seem fierce but brings radiant life, and dance like a winter tree?