A Winter’s tale
“The nights are colder now
Maybe I should close the door
And anyway the snow has covered all your footsteps
And I can follow you no more”
It’s not without a reason that seasons are used to describe our different moods. Just like in the David Essex song, ‘A Winter’s Tale’, the sense of sadness and loneliness are linked with the cold of winter. Even though the winter is over in Europe and we have already seen the evidence of spring, we now have to deal with a quiet time again, almost an extended winter mood. The whole world is in quarantine.
Symbols of winter
I have come to love my daily walks through Stadtpark to practice my photography and even on very cold and grey days I found scenes that matched most of the symbols of Winter. Bare trees, grey skies and emptiness and not many people around. Also a sense of quiet, almost as if it is time for reflection, a time when everything and everyone goes within themselves to be renewed again. It’s as if you can capture the quietness, the solitude and dormancy in photographs.
Today the sun was shining and what should have been a lively atmosphere in Stadtpark, was quite the opposite. The benches empty, nobody sitting on the grass and no children running around or feeding the ducks. It all felt too quiet.
Back to basics
I have read somewhere that winter time symbolises a time of introspection and clarification and this made me think of how we all now have to deal with a difficult situation at the moment. There is a sense of quietness all around and everything and everybody have come to a standstill. Maybe this is a time now when we need to strip down and get back to the basics. During this time when we are almost forced to be quiet in ourselves that we could rethink what we are supposed to be doing and how to live our lives.
Personal growth
I was thinking of the time when my daughter, Suzan, had a serious knee injury. Suzan is a ballet dancer and an injury for her meant that she would have to take time off dancing. This injury came out of the blue. She didn’t even do anything out of the ordinary or strenuous, she just sat down on the floor and the next moment as she got up, she experienced the incredible pain. Suzan called me, in tears and almost unable to speak, because this was a dancer’s worst nightmare. After seeing the specialist she was told that an operation is needed and recovery and rehab would take months. This meant that it would almost be a year before she would be able to dance again.
Maybe it was a mother’s instinct but somehow, I felt that this time would not just be the recovering of the injury, but also more of a personal growth and introspection. For Suzan, this was her winter that she had to go through. She did not only recover physically but had time to deal with emotional and mental things that was part and parcel of her life as a dancer for a very long time. A winter for her with so much fog that even the mighty sun had difficulty shining through. It was this distance from everything, the alone time, the sadness, the darkness, that made her realise things that she would never have realised if it had not been for this time in her life. A year later she was back on stage again with a new outlook, not just on her career, but on many other aspects of her life. I am so proud of her and admire her so much for her courage.
A good time to start
When I look at my winter photographs, I realise that this was the best time for me to start with photography. There are technical things that I could learn because of specific lighting conditions during the winter, but most of all, it gave me the chance to, not only look, but see. I started to see things around me in this quietness, the bareness and calmness. I realise that everything has a time period and there is no need to rush the process. It is this process where we learn the most about ourselves, and progress, although slow, is made for sure.
“It seems like everything sleeps in winter, but it's really a time of renewal and reflection.”
― Elizabeth Camden
After winter comes spring
Even thought the mood is of uncertainty for us all at the moment, it might be a good time to refuel, to rest, to learn more about ourselves. It’s a quiet time for us all and we should let the process happen, because just as the seasons, things will change, new beginnings are lying ahead and spring will soon bring new perspectives, colour and vibrancy, not only in our lives, but in the whole world.
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck
“Snow falling soundlessly in the middle of the night will always fill my heart with sweet clarity”
― Novala Takemoto
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
― Anne Bradstreet
“There is an instinctive withdrawal for the sake of preservation, a closure that assumes the order of completion. Winter is a season unto itself.”
― Haruki Murakami