I imagine going out during winter like silently going to battle. First you wear a flimsy coat, a little silky scarf and high leather boots in November, acknowledging that it could get chilly but you chill with fashion and dignity.
It’s almost December. You decide it’s time for the real winter coat, you know the thick one with goose feather inside that gets passed on to generations witnessing some half a century of winters originally from your husband’s granny. It has been everywhere from snow-covered mountain tops to frozen lakes but is so robust and proudly states, “I am made for bitter cold to serve and protect! Let me be your body armor until my dying breath!”
It gets dark at 4pm. You wear the thick cashmere scarf and the leather gloves with feathers hand sewn inside, tough on the outside but cuddly soft on the inside. If only you can fit inside the glove to snuggle in warmth and fall asleep with a good book. Gloves say, “Yes I understand your deepest hopes and desires. And that is to eat and sleep in the winter without getting fat. I am made to comfort your hands but mostly your heart”.
Then your feet cannot deny it anymore, all tingly from walking with knee high leather boots. So you swap those with the reliable thick black snow boots. Your fashion suffered a little. You accept a bit of defeat. But you tread on because the warrior in you says freezing is not an option!
Your acceptance of defeat continues. You replace your inside 5th layer with your warm, very outdoors woolly cardigan that you handpicked from this very European bio-organic-fairtrade-zero plastic-not-tested-on-animals shop whose sole purpose is to make you feel warm without making you look fat and therefore costed a fortune. Then you layer your head with your ear-warmer-forehead-band and top it off with the grayish fluffy Moscow soldier headgear. The headgear is tight for when the Northern winds howl. You are ready to march outside.
Then it happens. You felt this percolating gloom from the start. You expected this creeping doom that turns the blue skies of your heart to gray. You lost all your joy. Winter blues have arrived. The darkness suck it out of you. So you ready your comrades, and your generals–err friends and colleagues, life coaches, therapists, psychiatrists what-have-you’s and you create a battle plan.
We are going to war! We are fighting the darkness, the bitter frost, the meaninglessness of life and the fact that it is still winter after the holidays like there is no point because the Christmas markets are already gone!
