Didn’t I say last week that there would be ice on my walkway by this week? Well, yep, that happened. We had a doozy of a storm from Saturday night right through to Tuesday morning. Windy and cold and dark with about 2″ of precipitation altogether. Mostly icy rain until Sunday afternoon, then mostly snow until Tuesday morning. We have about 4″ of snow on the ground now. And yes, there was ice on the path to my back door.
We were under a winter storm warning though, so I was ready. I bought a forty pound bucket of salt this year. I couldn’t find any jumbo boxes of baking soda though I didn’t bother going to the supermarket to look. Instead, I asked the Agway people what they use, and they told me to go to the town hardware store and ask for the pet-friendly variety. Apparently, “pet-friendly” means “just salt”, no evil chemicals. So it is much less caustic to living tissues of all kinds, but it also won’t melt the ice below about 20°F. I’ll probably need to buy sand as well here soon.
Because winter has definitely arrived in New England. Time to slow down, to sleep more, to pull in and stay home. Or it would be, if we didn’t live in an insane culture.
I am wintering. I need this rest. It was a very rough summer, and there just wasn’t enough recovery time. Meningitis spins off all sorts of fun complications even in the best of cases. And this old body is not the best of cases… Yes, I know I should be grateful to have survived, but it’s like health whack-a-mole now. One thing after another. Chronic issues that were mostly under control are breaking down again willy nilly. Just last week, I learned that my thyroid, nominally stable for about fifteen years, tipped over into chaos. I am mostly low in thyroid hormone with short bursts of very high, which is the characteristic signature of a zombie endocrine gland doing nothing and then dumping tons into the bloodstream. Of course, this explains the fluctuating blood pressure and the arrhythmia and the exhaustion and the brain fuzz and many other fun things.
So I am wintering. I am saying no to new commitments and cutting back what I can. I am reading for pleasure (Philip Pullman and Rebecca Roanhorse this week) and tabling the pile of “should reads”. (It’s literally a table at this point… ha…) I am watching movies while walking on my treadmill rather than braving the weather. I made a pot of green chile posole and a dozen pumpkin muffins and am eating when I am hungry, however frequent — or not — that might be. And I am sleeping.
Or I would be if I didn’t have this stupid job. I am deeply resenting wage work right now. Monday morning, I went out to see what the red warning winter storm had brought us and was alarmed by the ice. I texted Son#1 to let him know that he probably would be spending upwards of a quarter hour scraping it off his car. But he was smart and de-iced early. (In the dark…)
Then we talked about our employer (yes, he’s a banker too, we’re all numbers people in my family) and the likelihood of opening late to allow for safe travel to work. Apparently, sometime last year, the people who decide things decided that there will be no more delayed openings. This doesn’t affect the people who decide things, all of whom can and do decide to work from home whenever they want for whatever reason. However, it has drastic effects on the tellers, none of whom can decide anything — or even voice an advisory opinion.
Few of the front line folks work in a branch close to home. Many get shipped to different branches every few days. So all of them have to drive in the early morning darkness on roads that are often not plowed until later in the morning. A year or so ago, Son#1 spun out on the ice coming down his hill and totaled his last car. (Luckily, he was unhurt, though late for work…) Same story for several other people, all of them young and quite unequal to being able to afford all the expense of a new car. I rather hope the next accident results in a lawsuit. There is just no reason to open a bank branch in a snow storm when no people are out — and have no business being out! — while there are automatic teller machines and online banking available at all hours. This decision to open in all weathers is simply macho irresponsibility.
It is also the norm in this insane culture where work always comes first… because we always must be churning the world into wealth for the few… not unrelatedly those very same people who make decisions to not make allowances for weather.
But I feel too cruddy to get too worked up about the idiocy of wage work. I am wintering because my body is forcing me to do so. I suspect this will be true for my body from now on for most winters. I also suspect winter itself will be forcing us all into wintering. The more extreme the weather the more likely there will be power outages, road closures, and myriad household disasters from burst pipes to trees falling on cars and houses. And that’s just winter… There is also summer… And disease… And aging infrastructure… And economic collapse… And any number of other fun things that will be another version of whack-a-mole, constantly interrupting our culture’s insane focus on work — which is, of course, the cause of all these worsening calamities. This system is eroding itself, creating its own undermining conditions; and soon, wintering will be the norm.
Which is, of course, the only logical way to deal with winter… and any other calamity. Pull in, slow down, do less… Take care of your body… Because it’s all you get. And your own winter is just after the fall.
Most of all sleep… When the going gets tough… Go burrow into the blanket cave and sleep. The ice on the walkway will still be there in the morning. Or maybe it will melt if you sleep late enough. No salt required… Just common sense wintering.
The Wednesday Word
for 19 November 2025
wintering
What does wintering mean to you? Think about it. If you’d like, send me a quick poem or story… or just a few thoughts. If you really have something to say, maybe enter my Wednesday Word contest on AllPoetry.
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 
“Insane” is a very good word for the society we live in!
May this winter be kind to you.
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Overwintering
********
Overwintering was so much easier
when we were young.
The big snowfall that canceled school
was an added day in your life.
You knew that
there would always be spring
followed by a summer,
with no school, no hours. no limits
to our escape from freedom.
But, like the falling leaves,
there is no longer
the need for raging
at the cold hardening of life’s storms
and the dying of the light.
Now that we’re old, overwintering
seems somehow different.
knowing that eventually, perhaps soon,
there is not going to be
another spring.
That summer has come and gone.
The over wintering of our lives
is all that there ever will be.
Now instead of raging,
the dying of the light
is somehow comforting
and soothing like a deep sleep.
Where dreams have become memories
and the future now a past.
Where going quietly into
that good night
is the best that
we can hope for.
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