Leaving winter behind

Photo credit: Tanja Hoppmann, 2023

Sunday morning as I woke up, a cold wind was chilling my living room in a way it hadn’t for weeks. The sun was just rising over the lake, and it almost looked like winter again: bare branches revealing the personality of the trees. Bright blue skies, the hallmark — for me — of New York City winters. Brilliant, icy-clear, sunshine. Frost.

I love winter, if you couldn’t tell. Then again, I love all seasons, and this one is supposed to be spring.

The fluctuation of the weather, seesawing back and forth, performing all four seasons over the course of a week, mirrors pretty much everything right now.

From bombings to ceasefire, then back to doom. From blocked funding for healthcare and aid, to legal injunctions, and yet no aid flows. From paths closed, then opened, then closed again. Some days, I feel dizzy and nauseated and weary. In other moments, I see the expansiveness in all of this destruction , and the possibilities buoy me and give me hope.

I know it is springtime because my allergies are active, waking me early with itchy eyes and a closing throat. That knowledge is physical, solid, rooted in my body’s response to the world. This is also how I know we get to live in an era that requires us to build a different world: it is a physical clarity, almost, like something I know in my bones.

As I look out over the lake, I mourn the winter we are leaving behind, but not the crumbling systems that never were meant to allow us all to live. I trust we can do better. I know we must. One foot in front of the other: the only way out is through.