Yep, it’s midwinter, Candlemas or Groundhog Day, traditionally the coldest day of the year, although it didn’t live up to that here. Storm Malik withdrew yesterday, leaving cold sunshine between the clouds. Any Danish groundhog would have to play peek-a-boo if it hoped for a shadow to check the tilt of its ears. Folk tradition therefore says spring is on the way. Mainly, there’s about an hour more daylight than there was around Christmas, when the days were darkest.
For many years I found it very strange that a former desert rat like myself could be so very fond of winter, long dark nights & howling wind. I’ve lived here twice as long as Tucson & I still love all 4 seasons – it’s the natives who gripe. At a post-meditation assembly in December where the topic was acceptance, the first remark was, “I can’t accept that it’s so dark all winter. It gets dark at 3.00 in the afternoon. It’s like a 5-hour difference. I can’t accept that.”
So move to Spain, I thought, that’s the dumbest remark I’ve ever heard. The same woman’s later remarks proved that this was not the sharpest tool in the shed speaking, but still. SO many Danes gripe & grump all winter long or else basically hibernate & walk around like a cross between a popsicle & a zombie. I have a colleague who extends this to rainy days. You’d think the universe was piddling on her head for pure spite, the way she goes on … & on & on.
My first trip to Europe in 1971 brought me from Tucson – where we had not had one drop of rain in 5 months – to Ireland, where it rained the day after my little son & I arrived. The neighbors thought we had lost it when we ran around the garden with our tongues out. They understood when I explained.
So I guess there’s an explanation. People brought up in northern countries were meant to hibernate in winter. Farmers couldn’t do an awful lot. Tradesmen could but there wasn’t as much of everything – mainly food – as there was the rest of the year, so everybody conserved energy, just like their animals. It makes me feel more tolerant, realizing it’s all ‘society’s fault’ – the way we’ve turned up the volume & the speed & keep everything going when we should really be curled up by the fire with a good book & the last bit of coffee from the bottom of the jar. Just as desert dwellers need that midday siesta, out of the blazing sun. Danes who gripe all the dark months are still a royal pain. So I am here griping about them. Ahhh – that feels good.
Although … um … back in Tucson, especially that year when there were 100 days over 100 F, we griped from the time we rolled out of bed. But that was extreme ….