Trees curl their dendritic appendages inward, protecting their nakedness from the elements. The atmosphere is withdrawn. It seems silent, feels lifeless. Blossoms have vanished with spring’s blush. Summer dressage has abandoned the sluggish branches. No harvest grain endures. Only the essentials prevail: barren trunks, bleak soil, sunken roots. Storms roil in waves, twisted gales unyielding in their mission to destroy all. Winter’s wilting embrace compels me into hiding. From the security of warm hearth and frosted window, I watch the stark landscape outside turn blue-grey.
The hibernate season is a reminder that everything must have an opposite. Death and decay creep behind birth. Shadows tread the margins of fading light. Cold seeps in when the fire dies.
Winter is a time of gestation. Life forms waiting for the thaw: eggs, seeds, pupas. My creativity also cocooning as it feeds on spirals of information I ingest. My body stewing in thick folded layers of wool and soup. A time of recession, of catching my breath and allowing it to release slowly. A time of waiting…for the water to boil, the spark to blaze, the emptiness to refill.
A lone chirrup cleaves my thoughts. I scan the shorn boughs for signs of color, flutter of wings. The tweeting sounds close at hand. I look down. On the sill a taupe feathered creature twitches with glee, melodies an abstract three-toed pattern in the dust. I gaze, amazed at such merriment. With a flit the bird vanishes, taking along my curiosity. What else is alive out there? What lies deep in those desolate woods? Can I come to terms with winter’s exposed scaffolding? I wrestle my inertia outdoors.
Everywhere there are gaps. Fissures in the snow. Chasms through which the icy wind needles. Breaches in the lattice of growth that bare the underpinnings. An entire year readying to spool itself into oblivion. A cue for my own impending end: forgotten detritus mingling with dirt. The clouds quicken, invade my senses with their damp must. Half of me wants to delve into the openings, to explore the unknown gulfs. The other half is afraid of what I’ll find.
Then, like a slap across the cheek, chandeliers of frozen berries accost my sullen tramping. “Look at us,” the carmine droplets scream, swinging from their brittle vines. That’s the crux of winter. Right when I think it’s all gloom, the lacework of a desiccating leaf catches my eye. Just as my lungs sing from the magic of a squirrel practicing yoga at the edge of a white field, the universe presents me the muddied, mangled carcass of a roadkill. It’s never one thing or the other. Did I think life would make it easy? Hand me the perfect day?
It has. What could be better than this offering? Mountains perch in the distance like sleeping beavers against a laden sky. My breath puffs into miniature clouds. A fallen pinecone bejewels the rimed ground. I’ve got beavers on the brain now as I descend upon a purling creek. The waters curl round something brown and stubby. My pulse races. I creep closer. “Is it?” I freeze, pretending I’m at heart a wobbly sapling so as not to frighten the perhaps-rodent. After squinting fiercely for twenty minutes I realize I’ve been hide-and-seeking with a clump of twigs. I flush with embarrassment. “Nothing’s guaranteed,” the world cackles, “make of this what you will.”
So, I gobble the hours stalking underneath logs, turning over moss-crusted rocks, scouring minutiae for a glimpse into other lives. What else to do? I cannot pocket the seconds to spend later. But, I am doomed to blindness. No mysteries reveal themselves. Meanwhile, a red-beaked warbler appears, easily spying tasty morsels in crevices. I surrender. I sprawl on the banks of the runnel, the wintry bite numbing my back, eyes unfocused. Gradually the firmament above unravels into a fractal of veins, bronchial tracts ebbing and flowing rhythmically. I can see the earth respirating, can feel it in the matching thrum of my blood. Then, the pallor overhead dissolves deeper, shifting to ink over details until I can only detect the barest of contours. Little by little that dims too, flickers, then goes out.
Bespoke Traveler Note:
For the last month of the year, author Kim Fu offers twelve strange tales in “Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century.” These stories wrestle with death, transformation, and the contradictions within each of us. Available at your local bookstore or through the bookshop.org link: https://bookshop.org/a/9591/9781951142995.
Thank you for listening. “Winter Gifts” was written and narrated by Atreyee Gupta. To read this and other travel tales, head to our website at www.bespoketraveler.com.
