by Heather Doyle Fraser
Spring is on our doorstep. You can feel the groundswell of energy waiting—and not patiently. Daffodils have started to burst from the soil even amidst the snow melt that still remains in places. Green is beginning to creep back into the landscape— the soft, tentative green of spring.
We’re still a bit off from official Spring, and you can bet we will have at least one more snow—if not three (three snows after the forsythia blooms, as the old wives tale goes)—before it truly feels like we’ve exited Winter. My season of Wintering, though, has been going on for longer than our weather would suggest.
You can be in a season on Wintering at any time of year. My season of Wintering began late last fall after my daughter left for college. I felt the need to retreat and regroup, to cocoon and redefine not only myself, but also how I come to my days. I wrote a couple of essays about this on my blog, but you probably didn’t see them because I didn’t share them.
That’s the thing about my season of Wintering, it isn’t absent of creativity, but there is an absence of sharing. Writers need time to process for themselves and sometimes that looks like not sharing. It’s okay not to share everything. And then, when we feel ready (or even a little before we feel ready), it’s time to share again.
I have not been great about sharing regularly anywhere recently (as I have just confessed), but now I am venturing back. I still inhabit my season of Wintering, but I can also feel the energy of Spring urging me on to begin to share again more publicly here in my communications with you and on my social media.
If you’ve been feeling this need to retreat and cocoon, maybe you haven’t been sharing your voice as readily, either. These seasons in our lives are to be expected — we can’t expand and share constantly — we need time for reflection and introspection. Writing is a nuanced practice, and that requires some periods of a slower pace.
When I think about pace and begin to judge myself for my lack of speed, I remember the word cadence. This word is my mantra when I am feeling undone by what I haven’t done. Cadence allows for my humanity and my times of Wintering. Cadence allows the writer in me to fully express myself even when I don’t feel safe to share in that moment. Cadence allows for change and potential and possibility. Cadence welcomes slowness and speed. When I remember this, I remember that I can set the pace.
With that message, I will close today, but you can expect to read more from me as I emerge from my season of Wintering. We are publishing two new books this Spring at Compassionate Mind Collaborative and the ComPASSIONATE Writer Spring Cohort will be starting again in May. I’ll be here to share about them as well as my thoughts and experiences of bringing compassion to the practice of writing. I’m glad you are here to share these moments with me.