I.Am.So.Seasonal.

How could I ever live anywhere but the midwest? Would I survive? Would my seasons still feel like seasons if they didn't look like seasons?

In this, the dead of winter, I am hibernating, and it is good. I read deeply. I think and think and think. I crave learning new things because I have time. I clean things that were not touched through the entire fall sports season. Even as I get frustrated with inane tax codes and HSA babble, I love to do all the taxes and get the sense of great accomplishment when they are done. It makes me feel like I'm right back in the office with my dad, helping do the farm books in a warm house in the cold of winter (ok, this house is not warm like their house, but my extra slippers and sweaters compensate).

I find new music that will sustain me throughout the year, when I don't have time or the inclination to find it. I visit. I plan, and plan and plan. I cook differently -- everyone does this, right? I do not make my comfort-food-only-I-like-it-tuna-noodle in July. That is a winter food. We make soups and more breads, and casseroles and apparently, lots of things with melted cheese.

I have too many ideas, ways to make things better, ways to help, ways to get involved. Dangerous. Can I make it out of winter without having taken on so many things that I will kill my spring-summer-fall? As I am learning in every season, this means waiting on God, listening to the Spirit before I say yes or say my ideas out loud. My prayers, my trust deepens in the slow time of winter.

Trips to the library mean many evenings where all 7 of us have our noses in books and some music quietly playing. Or craft supplies left out for days. Piano practice and playing gets deeper and longer.

I love winter. I don't love it for it's cold and ice and gray days (although I do love it's annual bug-killing cycle, and how it rests the earth). I love it because of spring. How could there be spring without winter? How could I work hard without rest? How could I know joy without knowing sadness?