Finding the Sweetness in the Dark

I believe my mental fog is lifting. (Although, if you speak with those to whom I've uttered complete nonsense recently, I'm afraid they'd tell you otherwise. 😉)

I'm learning to accept this season I'm in. To notice it for what it is. To appreciate that slow progress forward is normal, and okay. It's still progress.

"We are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn't there. . . . We often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need." —Katherine May, Wintering, pages 119-120

The marquee in my town's village center displays a version of the following quote from American writer John Steinbeck:

"For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?" —Travels with Charley, page 25

It's a good reminder to notice the sweetnesses around me. Those that surround me today, but also those that were there in the dark. The ones I barely caught glimpses of in the moment.

Thankfully, I did catch them. They are the memories from the cold that I hope to never forget. The memories that will usher in the green and the warmth.