Even here, where the seasons only change from searing hot to less hot, I can feel the haunt of winter approaching. I can feel these are the months coming up that I will have to slug through. Where I push and push and break through into the new year and all the usual resolutions come weighing on my shoulders, pressuring me to achieve. And all these months still ahead to live, before you can even thaw. Waiting for the green to get loose again.
I’m in the middle of the desert, but I’m thinking of that polar bear on that Planet Earth documentary we watched today. How she spends her winter underneath the ground, hiding with her cubs, without a bite to eat for months. And how she wriggles out of this tiny hole come time for Spring. She then has to nurse her cubs with the last of her reserves. And even then, it’s not over yet, there are the weeks ahead yet, struggling through melting ice, where she has to trek across miles to hunt in a barren land. But when she first comes out of the hole, she lets herself slip and slide down the icy hill, like a child on a slide. In some form of animal umitigated joy.
I need to put on some polar bear reserve fat.
Maybe this year I will simply resolve to be happy. No ifs ands or buts. No roads to happiness to walk. Only happiness now.
Winter’s coming, it’s whispering fears, but it’s telling me too: courage. Square the shoulders, steady the knees. I’m telling myself, it will be fine, no, it will be great. Send love. Be love. Offer your kindness. Go out of your way.
I have a tiny heart, beating, in my hands, only for you. Help it grow.
My Missed Demeanours 