Before winter officially ends, here's a Local Observation on the season. I was surprised that only one of you seems to have written on this topic. This series by Nina MacLaughlin in The Paris Review on the winter solstice is also great for capturing winter's specificity: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/columns/winter-solstice/.
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Time is often defined by change, events coming before or after others. Even within the span of a day these divisions are present, the portion of time we work, what time we eat, what time we sleep. Events occur one after another until the day is “complete", at which point we reset the clock and do it over again with minor deviations. So, what would time be like in a world without change? The closest example I have is the season of winter, a season in which time seems frozen. In spring we get the thaw of ice into that horrible disgusting brown sludge that gradually fades until green returns to the world, in summer we get flowers and allergies, in fall we get that gradual state of decay in preparation for the coming months of… nothing. Winter is a season without progression outside of the transition from brown and cold to white and cold. One day’s icy hellscape is more or less the same as any other’s, no change of colour or scenery, no change in temperature, we simply wait until it goes away. The result of this, I find, is that the winter months drag their feet, an excruciating standstill that seems to go on forever. Or maybe that’s just because I’m in Canada.
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