Impending winter: Notes from Ohio

I hate to admit it, but I’ve felt a little depressed already by the advent of winter. Winter in southwest Ohio surely isn’t as bad as some of the world has to deal with. I mean, if the grey and cold get to us, what must it be like for the folks in Canada: the source of the frigid Alberta Clippers we have come to respect in these parts?

For me, it began back in October when every weekend was either cold or wet or both. I have come to rely on high blue skies and mild temperatures in the tenth month to celebrate the color that is at the heart of this amazing planet on which we live. I missed it. I’ve talked with others who feel the same. And now we enter into November, the real beginning of the season when the weather cools enough to keep us inside most of the time, the days are shorter with darkness impending by 5:30, and skies seem grey way too often, even if the sun comes out for an hour or so now and then.

And so I picked up Rick Bass’s Winter: Notes from Montana again the other day. It has become a personal favorite. The first half of the book is a beautiful testimonal to preparing for winter. Bass, a nature loving native of the South, finds himself and his girlfriend winter house-sitting a remote compound of buildings in the wild Yaak Valley as far north in Montana as one can go. The place is non-electrified and, as you might imagine, has no utilities. The only heat Bass and his partner will have is what he provides via cutting, splitting, and stacking cords and cords of wood. He never quite hits his goal of 30 cords, but he manages to gather enough to keep the wolf away from the door. Literally.

Bass journals from the beginning of his Yaak adventure, picking up his story from the beginning of their drive, a search to find the best place for a young couple to create. Elizabeth is an artist. Rick a writer. They think they might like the Southwest, but it just doesn’t click for them. Through a circuitous journey, they end up at Fix Ranch in the Yaak by late summer, early fall -- just in time for a frenetic effort to prepare for the numbing cold to come.

No, we won’t get a winter like that here. But the preparation idea is what I find so hopeful. The very concept of preparing for a natural season change by personally gathering resources to sustain life is wonderfully basic and connects us to legions of folks who had to take winter seriously to survive. Sadly, we have lost this need in our culture today. All we have to do is turn up the thermostat and when the blower kicks in, we are safe.

Still, I’ve done my share of splitting and stacking over the last couple of months. It’s not near what Bass needed, but it will be enough to enjoy some fires in the downstairs stove on some chilly days. Again I have found purpose this fall.

The coming of the grey season can be hard. Studies tell us we have a need for sunlight. We in Ohio, in community with the rest of the Northland, simply don’t get enough. And I’ve been through enough winters in my life by now to know precisely what is coming and how it is going to feel. Even amid the hope, it does get me down a little bit.

But I also know that following Cindy & my anniversary on winter solstice, the sun begins its journey back north. And following that will be a wet and chilly spring followed by majestic flowering that, likewise, defines this amazing planet on which we live. I thank the Spirit of the Universe every night for blessing me with experiencing another day on planet. Still, I ain’t big on grey.

Today’s elder idea: Everything’s going on, back in the woods behind the house. I found mountain lion tracks in a puddle. When I look at the trees, they’re standing the same way, waiting for winter. They’re ready.

Rick Bass

from Winter: Notes from Montana