Sometimes, I just look at the blank page, or in this case the blank screen, not sure what to write about. I know what I don’t want to write about: the news. I am still watching it but have had my fill of writing about it.
It was a gray wintery day and in the upper 20s right now at 8:30 pm. We had a high of about freezing earlier. We had periods of light snow and a few moments of heavier snow. A sustained heavy snow would have been perfect for today, but we had no more than a dusting. The next few days look to be the same. The sun isn’t expected to make an appearance for about three days. We are eight days into the new year and thirteen days after Christmas. The festivities are behind us, though everyone has still kept the houses pandemically lit.
The shine is fading off of the resolutions for many of us. We heard about a record number of deaths from the virus yesterday. And, of course, there is that other item that the news stations are obsessed with these past two days. We are back to work, remotely or socially distantly, and moving steadily toward the one-year anniversary of that start of this whole thing.
All of this makes for these winter doldrums more doldrummy than usual.
So, how to combat and overcome these periods of stagnation and tedium, lest they turn into depression?
I just typed “winter doldrums” into a search window and first among the suggestions that pop-up while typing was “winter doldrums quotes.” Quotes was listed even before “winter doldrums definition” and “winter doldrums meaning.” I love quotes. I had to check them out.
There were several sites offering the top 20, 12, 30, 10, and even 17 quotes to chase the winter blues away. Fairly certain, I did not need 30, 20, 17, or even 12 quotes to do the trick, I opted to look at the one offering a more economical 10 quotes. I found them disappointing, not one of the quotes had the word winter in them, they were all about Spring and looking forward to Spring. I wanted something that would make me embrace the gray of these days.
So, I went to the site with 17 quotes. Well, this site just pulled 17 of quotes together that used the word doldrums in them. Only one resonated with me: “A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.” ~ Phyllis Mcginley, azquotes.com.
Ugh… the 20 quote one a Pinterest site that for the most part was half-hallmarky and half “I wish winter would end already.” There was one redeemable image, “Awesome things will happen today, if you choose not to be a miserable cow,” ~ Pinterest. Now, that’s the kind of doldrum beating quote I was looking for.
I had completely overlooked a site with 32 quotes. It ended up being from Reader’s Digest. Don’t roll your eyes, that venerable publication of our grandparents generation always had good quotes. They did not disappoint, there were some real nuggets here:
- How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter… ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson
- In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus
- Winter is not a season, it’s a celebration. ~ Anamika Mishra
- The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler… ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Winter is a season of recovery and preparation. ~ Paul Theroux
- Winter forms our character and brings out our best. ~ Tom Allen
- There is something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on… ~ Carol Rifka Brunt
- I like the cold weather. It means you get work done. ~ Noam Chomsky
That did the trick. I am keeping all of these handy.
I have also written a few times about winter and always positively.
- The Winter Solstice
- The Vortex Cometh
- An Old Fashioned Winter 2-11-18
- Snow Day! 1-8-18
- For the Love of a Good Winter Blast 1-11-15
- Brutalmente Frio! 1-30-14
- It Began with an Air Bath 1-27-09
- Winter Survival 1-05
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