Wrangler Dani

I love winter. I love the stillness of it, the way all of life slows down and pays attention, the way it forces me to come face-to-face with mortality and therefore gratitude. It’s easy to imagine surviving in sunny days of summer, but when the wind howls and the air stings your cheeks, it’s hard not to remind yourself that the gifts of warmth and shelter are not just the trimmings of cozy Christmas music, but essential blessings.

Winter is quiet. Winter begs me to focus, to see the way a tree branch becomes a work of art in frost, the beautiful plumes of steamy breath from my horse’s nostrils, the uniquely delicious taste of red wine by firelight, beef shanks braised in wine also, an all-day cook that warms the house and the cold fingers wrapped around the bowl.

I think I’m drawn to write about winter because cold is seems more complex than warmth. Summer days are an easy joy, no clouds to describe, too many sounds to capture. It’s easy to breeze through summer in ecstasy, too busy getting tan and floating rivers and chasing the ever-later sunset to sit with myself. I think many writers feel this way, not only about seasons but the landscape and seasonality of the soul – while it’s more obtuse, it’s easier, in a way, to write about pain and tragedy than it is to capture joy and blessing.

But what if joy should be mined because it is perhaps just as complex a feeling, if harder to capture? What if we’ve spent so long explaining the depths of our own fear that we have forgotten that joy is strength, that happiness is actually a “lost virtue”?

Americans often get smacked for being bad at grief and sadness, bad at thoughtfulness and angst. Maybe that’s true. But I know my own heart and I know that I see problems when I should see solutions, I’m overwhelmed by hate when I should be amazed by love. My problem is not that I’m adverse to pain, it’s that I’m so convinced pain is the only teacher that I find it when I should be embracing joy instead; I forget that life is full of gifts, many right under my nose, no matter the season without. I forget that it’s courageous to throw back your head and laugh with all your heart.