This year it was August 6. Summer disappeared over night and I panicked. I won’t survive! It happens every year when I have to let go of my front-door-always-open season.
August was a huge disappointment, September and first part of October though a surprising bonus. The latter October a rainy fog exchanged for real winter and one foot of snow starting the November weeks. Then it all melted away and the darkest of the dark hit us in companion with roads slippery from ice.
The “I won’t survive!” is for real. That’s exactly what it feels like. My body is happy when it’s warm. I am like a discharged battery before the sun comes out, and I spend the whole summer filling that battery to the brim. Overloading, I can’t get enough. Because when my body is happy I am happy. It brings me energy and with energy comes strength and stability. And will power. The good spiral. I don’t think I’ve ever realized the dignity of it as much as this summer. And the consequences of closing the door in the fall. Closing me down. Whiter like the summer flower I am. I won’t survive!!! I am not meant to be here, I must move to where I never have to be cold!
And where I can wear light clothing. It is interesting, because when I don’t need to cover myself in a lot of clothes I am in contact with my body. I can see my body. I can touch my body. My body is caressed by the hem of the white dress. My feet feel the grass. I am not separated from my body. We are a team and the chances for us to feel good and be good together increases.
I used to use the winter for good stuff. I used to go downhill and couldn’t wait for the snow pack to allow the slopes to open. I loved going downhill! And I was quite good at it. Mastering a black ski slope, what a kick. Being present with every fiber in my body. The full experience of being in contact. Shoveling snow, cars stuck in the mighty white, snowed in, it was all forgiven for those rhythmical runs in the slopes in harmony with myself.
2000 was my last downhill year. 16 years ago. Since then, I would say, the dark and cold season of the year has nothing to offer me. There is nothing forgiving about it anymore. When there is snow it’s beautiful, but as I can’t shovel it myself it’s a burden not only on me. My road is often slippery from ice and it’s a dangerous and tensed balancing act trying to take just the tiniest walk. The other morning there was actually a thin ice crust on what I thought was safe snow. I slipped, my pelvis yanked and…
I won’t survive! I do of course. I’m here. But I do die bit by bit. Wither petal by petal. This year I decided on it must be possible to keep the energy. It must be a decision right? Mind over matter. Make a list of good things to do. Stick to it. Light the candles. Take out nice fall clothes to hang on my bedroom closet doors as an inspiration, just as I do with my summer clothes, that must work?
A bit. But not really. I am doing all those things, but I am not warm. My body isn’t happy. And we are not connected. We are not a team. My body is something that hurts a lot, rules my life and I don’t want much to do with it. And I am beginning to realize that maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.
I saw this calendar. Beautiful paintings for every month. Swedish nature at it’s best. And the poetic saying: June, July August. All the other months a Longing. That’s a much better mind set than my usual. I tried to incorporate those romantic words within me.
Did I succeed? No. Because for me the grim truth is I should not live on the 64th latitude. The 64th latitude and me nowadays is like an old bad marriage. Nine months of surviving for the three months I am longing for. Or more accurate hoping for, because the Swedish summer is nothing to trust. Exactly like that marriage. You try and you come up with strategies and you hope for those better days but you have no idea if they will happen.
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