Winter

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Last week, we found out what it takes to bring Eugene, Oregon to a standstill. Eight inches of snow and seven days of freezing temperatures. School was cancelled for five days, leaving my teacher husband at home. When I first moved here eleven years ago, I chuckled when we experienced a dusting of snow and everyone panicked and raced home from work.

But this storm was icy, even by Colorado standards. The temperature was nine below zero one morning. Of course, it doesn’t help that the city is ill prepared for snow and ice, so traffic (and sidewalk) conditions were treacherous until the temperature rose.

We did every snow-related activity we could think of. Cross-country skiing around the neighborhood. Check. Careening down steep hills on sleds. Check. Snow angels. Snowball fights. Snow people. And that was just day one.

I should mention that we’re not used to having my husband at home. It’s not that we don’t love having him. It’s just that our routines suddenly seem like a foreign language. Laundry? Nap? Play dates? Deadlines? Work?

It always takes awhile for us to adjust and start getting things done, which usually coincides with his return to work. The good news is, he usually emerges with a special appreciation for the challenges and absurdities of the work-at-home life. “What you do here,” he said on Friday, after filling us in on his first day back at work. “It’s not easy.”

I must confess that as much as I loved gliding through our stilled neighborhood as fluffy snowflakes fluttered down and a layer of white carpeted the houses and towering Douglas firs, I was thrilled to see the green grass and vegetation reappear yesterday. We went on a bike ride to celebrate, with bonus points for anyone who could find one of the last remaining piles of slush to ride through. Perhaps I really am becoming an Oregonian.

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The Wisdom of Winter

By Abby Quillen

Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do — or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so. – Stanley Crawford

Oh February. I always find this month a little challenging. Short days. Rain. Fog.

Moreover, this February, a host of coughs, sniffles, sneezes, and most recently fevers have descended on us.

Around now it’s tempting to long for May, for the first strawberries and garden-fresh greens. For throwing the windows open in the afternoons and planting the garden and walking barefoot in the grass.

But the other day, when I emerged from our fevered nest, I was greeted by a handful of yellow crocuses dotting our neighbor’s yard. And I felt a wistfulness, not for spring or summer, but for the quiet, reflective days of this season, which is so quickly departing.

These days, we seem to think we can outsmart winter. We can arm ourselves with our electric lights and flu shots and vitamin drinks and continue to go, go, go.

I’m no different. I had all sorts of plans for February. A big project. Outings. Busy, packed days.

But so often winter demands a certain amount of stillness from us.

This month has brought me lots of quiet afternoons tending to sick family members, watching movies, knitting, and reading.

As crummy as it feels to be sick or to see those you love sick, I see wisdom in all of this. Slow down, winter tells us. Be still.

In the Mountain Rose Herbs blog this week, acupuncturist Dylan Stein advises, “Let’s take these last few weeks of winter as an opportunity to rest, to meditate quietly and to prepare our bodies for the bursting energy of spring.”

He recommends ingesting nourishing foods like beans, root vegetables, seaweeds, dark leafy greens, and walnuts, and gentle warming spices like cinnamon and ginger.

Likely, that’s where you’ll find me this week: resting, sipping on spice tea, and reflecting on the wisdom of these seasonal cycles of stillness and vigor.

My favorite spice tea:

1.5 quarts of water

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Combine and boil for 10 to 20 minutes. Strain.

Add honey to taste, if you wish.

Enjoy!

What’s your favorite winter food or drink? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Celebrate the First Day of Winter

By Abby Quillen

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ― John Steinbeck

It’s hard to find words after the tragic shooting in Connecticut last Friday. I am grieving with the families and the community there. As we, as a nation, reflect on darkness, this Friday in the Northern Hemisphere, we will observe the winter solstice — the darkest day of the year. We also welcome back the light and try to remember that brighter days will surely follow this season of darkness.

The frenzy of the holidays may seem like the wrong time to add yet another tradition to your to-do list. The key is making seasonal celebrations simple and relaxing. They can be the perfect opportunity to pause, appreciate nature’s cyclical changes, the lessons each season imparts, and to celebrate the natural beauty all around us.

Here are a few easy ideas for saying farewell to fall and hello to winter on Friday:

Observe

Watch the sun rise and set. Take a walk, hike, or ski trip and notice all of the things you appreciate about winter. For me, it’s the branches outlined against the sky and the thrushes, sparrows, seagulls, starlings, blue birds, and wrens that make this part of the world their home during the winter.

Read

What better time of the year to curl up and share books? A few of my family’s favorite winter-themed picture books are:

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Stella, Queen of the Snow by Mary-Louise Gay
The Big Snow by Berta Hader
A Kitten Tale by Eric Rohmann
Snow by Cynthia Rylant
Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer

It’s also fun to read aloud from The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson. And if you’re in the mood for adult reads, check out this list of Good Books to Read in the Winter or the Independent’s 50 Best Winter Reads.

Eat

Make a seasonal feast, with foods like beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. Prepare your favorite winter dessert or hot beverages. And don’t forget to light candles while you eat, a sure hit for kids and adults alike.

Reflect

When the sun sets, let your house dance with candlelight. Then after dinner, blow the candles out and sit together quietly in the darkness for a few minutes. Reflect on darkness and on how long and cold winter must have felt before we had electric lights and heat.

Other things you can reflect on together:

One thing you’ve lost this year and one thing you’ve gained.
One thing you want to say goodbye to in the new year and one thing you’d like to welcome back into your life.
Some of your best and worst holiday memories.

Wish

Bring an evergreen bough inside and make it into a wishing tree. Secure the bough in a bucket with rocks. Cut leaves out of construction paper. Have each person write down a wish for the coming year on each leaf. Hang the leaves on the tree using a hole punch and yarn or ribbon.

Hoping you have a happy first day of winter.

Do you have your own winter solstice traditions? I’d love to hear about them.

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6 Fun Ways To Spend a Cold, Dark Night

By Abby Quillen

I love cold weather, but the shorter days are always difficult for me to adjust to. Over the years I’ve stored up a toolbox of activities to make cold, winter nights more fun. I find myself especially in need of them in the days and weeks after the time changes.

1. Eat by candlelight

We didn’t light a lot of candles in my house when I was growing up, but occasionally we’d eat by candlelight. Those nights, along with random power outages, are some of my happiest memories. Flickering soft light just makes any dinner more special. My family also eats by candlelight now and then. And every time we do it, it’s as fun and uplifting as I remember it being when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to rush when you’re watching the reflection of flames dance on glasses.

2. Start a fire

There’s so much to love about a winter fire – the warmth, the mesmerizing flames, the way it brings the entire family together in one spot to look at something other than a TV screen. Bonus: you may not have to turn on your heater to enjoy toasty nights.

3. Read aloud or tell stories

Years ago, an older friend told me that she and her husband had been reading books aloud to each other each night for decades. I loved the idea, and since then, my husband and I have read many books aloud together. These days we spend our read-aloud time reading to our kids. But I know soon, we’ll move on to adult books again. There are so many great reasons to start a family reading tradition. I wrote about them in this post.

Storytelling is also a fun way to pass an evening. In Robert Shank’s book Tell Me A Story: Narrative and Intelligence, he explains that “human memory is story-based.” We’ve learned by telling each other stories since long before Homer. If coming up with a fictional yarn sounds more pressure-packed than taking the GRE, don’t worry. Just relax and tell stories about your childhood, grandparents, or past adventures. If you’re a parent, this kind of storytelling serves a bigger purpose: it helps kids recognize their place in a larger family and feel closer to their parents. Most people love listening to stories. And the more you practice, the better you get at telling them.

4. Throw a potluck

With the extra dose of darkness, we can all probably use double-shots of health and happiness. Well, the research is in: social connectedness is good for us. Researchers from Brigham Young University recently reviewed 148 studies and found that people with strong ties to family, friends or co-workers have a 50 percent lower risk of dying over a given period than those with fewer social connections. As The New York Times reported, “Having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day.” Potlucks are a thrifty and labor-saving way to invite your friends, neighbors, or colleagues over. My acquaintances may just be exceptional cooks, but potlucks never seem to disappoint.

5. Stargaze

I wrote about winter stargazing in this post. Shortly thereafter I made bold plans to stargaze every night with my trusty copy of 365 Starry Nights. The first few nights of January, I had a great time scouting out Orion and Pleides. Then it got cloudy. And it stayed cloudy until … July. Yes, rainy Eugene is not a stargazer’s paradise. Oh how I miss the Colorado night skies. But if you live somewhere with few clouds and a dark sky, bundling up and gazing at the stars is an age-old, relaxing way to spend a cold, dark winter night.

6. Make Something with your hands

In her book Lifting Depression, neuroscientist Kelly Lambert argues that using our hands for manual labor helps us prevent and cure depression. She says that when we cook, garden, knit, sew, build, or repair things with our hands and see tangible results from our efforts, our brains are bathed in feel-good chemicals. I just got my knitting needles out after neglecting them for the summer, and it’s incredibly rewarding to see what I can make with my own two hands in a relatively short time (while I’m sitting in front of the fire, listening to a story, watching a movie, or otherwise enjoying a winter evening).

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

What’s your favorite way to spend a cold, dark night? Do you have any tips for coping with fewer daylight hours?

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March Showers

By Abby Quillen

Remember how last month I was bragging about all of our nice weather and our early spring blossoms. Well, this week we’re getting torrents of rain to make up for it. Our backyard looks like a wading pool.

Honestly, I’m not complaining. I was feeling rather overwhelmed with garden and house projects, so the return of winter, with its slower pace and excuses to bake bread and curl up and read books is just what I needed. Of course, my son has other ideas about how we should spend these rainy days.

Here’s the story of our last few days, told in the color red…

And did I mention this? There’s been a whole lot of this going on:

This post is for Steady Mom’s Thirty Minute Blog Challenge.

Season Tickets

By Abby Quillen

This fall, my neighbor, an avid grower of corn, fertilized his backyard garden and pinned black plastic over it. A couple of days later, a few ducks showed up and stayed for the night. He surmised that from above they may have mistook it for a pond.

The next evening more came. And then more. One evening my neighbor counted sixty of them, huddled together, sleeping on the plastic, their bills tucked into their feathers.

Every evening at dusk, they descend in wide circles over the neighborhood in groups of four or five, flying lower and lower, until they’re just above our heads.

My son walks with his strider bike up and down the sidewalk, stopping to point up. “Ga ga,” he calls. That’s his word for duck. Neighbors emerge from their houses. We stand together listening to the ducks call to one another as the sun sets over the Coast Range, and it feels like we’ve bought season tickets to a magnificent show.Save

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