Midwinter

22 Dec Midwinter

The shortest day was yesterday. Was that midwinter? If so, it was tunelessly bleak – no frosty wind out there in the world but a lot to make one moan. Earth not hard as iron but soft and muddy with rain. The wet days seem perfectly suited to the moment.

I normally sleep well, rarely wake before 7 and often later. On Sunday I woke at 5.30 am. I can’t blame the sun streaming through my west-facing bedroom window – unless the world has turned on its axis or the seasons have changed places. I was restless. I had lost or mislaid the capacity to rest. Restlessness mixed with resignation. A confusing blend. Saturday afternoon’s announcement of new restrictions on our lives was obvious, overdue. I expected it though the timing was … not sure there’s a word to describe the timing. Dismal, disastrous, devastating – none of them quite cut it. Crushing? Expecting it didn’t crush my sense of shock. I suppose it was this that troubled my sleep and allowed wild thoughts to rouse me at that unusually early hour – the most terrifying of these being that we’re adrift in this pandemic now, out at sea on a ship captained by fools. Not that this hasn’t crossed my mind before. But this time the thought was accompanied by an emptying of the spirit. Dispiriting. Maybe the spirit is like blood – when you lose some, the volume is made up very quickly but restoring the quality, that takes time. 

I’m not at all sure where this is going but it seems this is a moment when we should try to document our feelings. For me, the absence of places to go, people to meet, things to see and do, the scaling back of plans, the withdrawing has meant that much of this year has been lived in my internal world. It’s a strange place where dark thoughts flit around unbidden. In there, extremes vie with one another all the time. More extremely, as far as I can see, than they used to back in the old days before March. I feel positive and optimistic one day then, without quite knowing why, the next day I’m troubled, even melancholy. Spectrums of restless-resigned, hopeful-discouraged, bright-dark, carefree-worried wrestle with one another in my soul. I sometimes ask myself if this is my unconscious trying to keep me in some sort of balance. I have no way of knowing if it’s doing a good job!

I’ve been shielding and being careful all year since March, so nothing much has changed for me with the advent of Tier 4. And yet it feels as if something’s been snatched away. There seemed to be, finally, a path ahead, beyond the forest, above the clouds. I would eventually find myself at the front of the queue for the vaccine. Others dear to me would too. We could all start to feel safer, step out into the world, meet again, venture beyond our confines, look towards far horizons, touch each other. I felt my back straighten, my shoulders relax, my mood lift, a brighter light flickered in my mind’s eye. Yet somehow these last couple of days have cast a shadow. The light has dimmed.

All year I was really careful with being hopeful. I worked hard to not get carried away with promises that might be false. My caution was a means of self-preservation. But somewhere along the line I must have let my guard down. Some of that bluster about beating the virus, showing it the door, sending it packing by Christmas (though now it’s Easter and I’m not falling for it again), some of those false promises must have hit their target. I had started to believe we were near the end of this strange adventure in alternative reality. I had become hopeful. Now it feels as if my hopefulness has been mistreated, handled without care. 

The world is quiet again just like it was back in March. I quite like a quiet world but you can feel the uneasiness beneath the silence. Maybe we are near the end of this grim adventure. Let’s hope so. But people are anxious again, though some bravely (or naively or wishfully) brush it all aside. Spirits are fragile and our leaders need to be more careful with our hope.