Ratings66
Average rating3.9
There are two racially and ethnically insensitive terms on the first page and a half. I didn't need to go any further. I'm disappointed that what could have been a lovely message from the author also contained language that communities have loudly and clearly asked us all not to use, and certainly not while making an income.
Like all memoir, I found this one equal parts insightful, naff, and self-indulgent, depending on what resonated with me and what I thought just belaboured the metaphor. If I were not the same age as May, having already learned the same lessons about burn out, toxic workplace, chronic illness, motherhood, and the unexpected things that flank attack you, I might have enjoyed it more. It's a short one though - it might be worth your time.
‘'There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into somewhere else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on. Somewhere Else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere Else exists at a delay, so that you can't quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already teetering on the brink of Somewhere Else anyway; but now I fell through, as simply and discreetly as dust sifting between the floorboards. I was surprised to find that I felt at home there. Winter had begun.''
Suddenly life decides to overthrow everything. Schedules, plans, habits, obligations, pleasures. Life turns against itself, lifts a hand, cries ‘'Hold. I've changed my mind.'' And you have two options. Give in or swim against the current. A sneaky illness. A school that exhausts its students. A career change. When winter comes, it may just be possible that it comes to confront you, help you, nurse your doubts. It may be possible that it comes to point the way and heal you.
‘'We like to imagine that it's possible for life to be one eternal summer and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves. We dream of an equatorial habitat, forever close to the sun, an endless, unvarying high season. But life's not like that.''
In her beautiful, moving memoir Katherine May takes us into winters of change, reflection, sadness, hope and love. She explores the significance of winter in novels and fairy tales, its bond with our childhood delights, the quiet joy that accompanies the silent season. As soon as autumn knocks on our door, the need to put a light in every corner of our house seems to become greater than ever. We need to pause and find whatever peace of mind can still be found. The smell of the woodsmoke and the chilly air. And, yes, we turn our collars up to protect ourselves against the wind and our steps become faster because the cold is a tiny bit too much. And I wouldn't trade this for a thousand eternal summers.
‘'But winter is a time when death comes closest - when the cold feels as though it might yet snatch us away, despite our modern comforts. We still perceive the presence of those we've lost in the silence of those long evenings and in the depths of darkness that they bring. This is the season of ghosts. Their pale forms are invisible in bright sunlight. Winter makes them clear again.''
May opens a door into her life and speaks to us as if to an old friend. In Iceland and Norway, in the polar nights and the wealth of the Sami culture. In the ghost stories of Halloween. In the depths of Gaelic Mythology, the figure of Cailleach, the Midwinter experience in Stonehenge and the festival of Imbolc. In John Donne's A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day. In the darkness lit by Saint Lucia's crown of candles through a marvelous scene in the Svenska Kyrkan in Marylebone. In the comfort of spending an evening in church. In the particular pleasure of winter sleeps. In January's Wolf Moon. In the legends about bees and robins. In the February snow. In overcoming the threat of losing your loved ones. In standing by your child's side when he has had enough of an outrageous school system. In the comfort of books, the trustworthy companions made of paper and ink, in children's stories, in the enchanting malice of the White Witch, in Sylvia Plath's cry.
That is where winter is hidden.
I don't need verbose bits of wisdom. I don't care about the ‘'wisdom'' of others, whatever wisdom God has granted me has led me to safe harbours for 36 years. It is memoirs such as this that I cherish. The writing, the beauty, the images, the smells and sounds. I lived inside this book, I treasured every page, every confession. What more could I possibly ask for?
‘'Winter is a quiet house in lamplight, a spin in the garden to see bright stars on a clear night, the roar of the wood burning stove and the accompanying smell of charred wood.''
‘'That's what you learn in winter: there is a past, a present. And a future. There is a time after the aftermath.''
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
Welp, I just read my favorite nonfiction book of 2021.
There is this magical thing that happens: sometimes the right book falls into your life at exactly the right time. I didn't know it but I needed to read Wintering this winter, and I believe, I need to own a copy so that I may reread it every winter from now on. I have this incredible feeling that this book will mean different things to me in different years. I do recognize there is a place for it in my life and on my personal library shelf.
It's something in May's voice that just kind of connects with my reader soul. While our lives may be different, she nailed the feels I've been feeling, named them, called them out, and inspected them. She did this in the way my brain loves nonfiction titles to explore: introduce a topic and then investigate it by researching something that fits the bill. Example: May loses her voice due to her own health “wintering” and takes singing lessons. She explores how important singing is to humans and my brain fired up with connections- I cannot sing (I sound something like a cat in heat) but I used to sing all of the time leading storytimes at the library and the absence of that singing, that outlet, the group sing of every toddler and every parent singing their heart's out (and drowning me out, thankfully) and dancing to One Little Finger- the absence of this had me slowly dying but I didn't KNOW it. As a remedy, I led a one-woman concert in my car on the drive home from work last night.
My heart was about ten pounds lighter when I pulled into the driveway.
Normally I avoid getting personal in a book review, but I don't think I can express the impact this book had on me without going there a bit. YMMV. I can't imagine anyone disliking this book, but I do feel a deep connection to this book. I'd love to read her other works.
It is my great hope that some celebrity moron does not slap her stupid book club sticker on this.
“Everyone winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again.”
Does it feel to you, as it does to me, that most of 2020 has been a wintering season?
“Wintering...is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider....Some wintering creep upon us more slowly....Some are appallingly sudden....However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. Yet it's also inevitable.”
Wintering. This is a book of personal reflections, sharing times in the author's life when she faced periods of wintering.
And it is inevitable. We know that. The essential question is, then: How do we cope with it?
The author has a powerful answer: by embracing winter, rather than trying to push it away.
She shares more about one common wintering obstacle, snow: “Try as I might, I can't produce the adult hardness towards a snowfall, full of resentment at the inconvenience. I love the inconvenience the same way I sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step out of your normal habits.” Intriguing, right?
And more, stated even more powerfully: “I'm beginning to think that unhappiness is one of the simple things in life: a pure, basic emotion to be respected, if not savored....I looked it in the eye. I greeted it and let it in....I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?
Beautiful writing. Thoughtful perspective.