Wintering
The Power of Rest and Retreat in Dificult Times
Katherine May
Having read it
★★★★★
A personally resonant and life-affirming read that used stories from others to add complementary brushstrokes to this memoir’s narrative and help paint the book’s insights and beauty and the author’s own understandings of the benefits of wintering; it’s an important subject and one that enables progress and growth for us all; and a natural, complementary title to Deficit by Emma Holten and A Necessary Kindness by Juno Carey.
That’s what you learn in winter: there is a past, a present and a future. There is a time after the aftermath.
A good passage
Life goes on, abundantly, in winter, and this is where changes are made that usher us into future glories.
A second good passage
Watching winter, and really listening to its messages, we learn that effect is often disproportionate to cause; that tiny mistakes can lead to huge disas-ters; that life is often bloody unfair, but it carries on happening with or without our consent. We learn to look kindly on other people’s crises, because they are so often portents of our own future.
A third good passage
Usefulness, in itself, is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don’t think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us. We keep pets just for the pleasure of looking after them; we voluntarily feed these extra mouths and scoop up excrement in little plastic bags, and declare it relaxing. We channel our adoration towards the most helpless citizens of all – babies and children – for reasons that have nothing to do with their future utility. We flourish on car-ing, on doling out love. The most helpless members of our families and communities are what stick us together. It’s how we thrive. Our winters are social glue.