I planted an amaryllis yesterday looking for some spring in my January. I plopped the chunky bulb into a white pot of wet peat and slid it across the counter near a window. The bulb looked inert, though I can predict that given light and time those little green cells underneath that dry brown skin will produce marvelous things. That familiar spiky amaryllis surge will not happen immediately though, and I’d be a fool to expect it. So why, I wonder, looking outside to a soggy cold day, do I expect myself to surge after January 1? Dormant, after all, isn’t so much unattractive as it is promising.
But when I turn on the TV, or stand in a grocery line reading magazine covers, calls to make dramatic life changes are everywhere. What is wrong for me about this press for activity in January is that I’m not ready for it. Resolutions seem premature and forced, a form of madness more appropriate to spring. It’s winter, after all, a time when many living beings hibernate.
Losing weight, for example, has been at the top of my to-do list for decades and trust me, is not going away soon. But instead of South Beach, or a round with a personal trainer, I know I might live off my fat for awhile, just like the squirrels and bears in northern climates. I wouldn’t have to eat much in hibernation, since the store around my mid-section would most certainly support writing, napping and sitting in front of the fireplace on a bleak afternoon. What little I require I can get from my pantry and freezer—both well-stocked, or in serious need of cleaning out, depending on my point of view. That bag of frozen parsley will sink nicely into a stew concocted from that package of stir-fry beef sporting only the thinnest layer of freezer burn.
Moving my hibernation thoughts along to less ordinary concerns I find myself taking a hard look at my current responsibilities in the economic crisis. Quickly I realize that not much is up to me right now on the national and global economic front. Yes, I can worry, but the world and its economic mess is not likely to miss me for a month or so.
I don’t know how to measure psychic energy, but I know I am saving some with my new thinking. Life and winter both seem easier. I notice I am sitting straighter in my writing chair and greeting my clients on the phone with a sense of curiosity and optimism for their futures. I am getting curious about what lively directions I might choose for 2011, but I know it’s too early to name these, let alone to act on them. “Go inward,” is what keeps echoing through my head.
I am not so sure of myself that I don’t second-guess my inclination to hibernate. Retract or exert, what’s really the best thing? Should I pressure myself to take action on new projects, instincts be-damned? I do want to lose those extra pounds that popped up on my doctor’s scale. I like to work hard and make a difference in the world. I know it is my time to live and I am aware that it passes quickly, without our permission. Still, as I stretch out my legs in front of the family room fireplace, I remind myself both that life does not always surge upward and that the ground in my January probably only appears fallow.
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