Book Review: Wintering

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times is author Katherine's May's third memoir and it hits the sweet or not so sweet spot in the winter after 2020, when many of us are reeling after a year unlike any other.

The book opens with May's husband in the hospital and her own health issues starting. She ends up leaving her job due to health issues and ends up homeschooling her son. She talks about her own 'winterings' in life; episodes of depression and coming to terms with the diagnosis of autism late in life. As she comes to explain, wintering is both the act of making it through the winter season and the season of basically everything falling to bits and needing to regroup and re-center. She encounters both during this book.

There is an early, highly underlined passage, especially after this previous year:

        "I'm tired, inevitably. But it's more than that. I'm hollowed out. I'm tetchy and irritable, constantly         feeling like prey, believing  that everything is urgent and that I can never do enough."

The book is divided into months, from September to March, which each month having two or three chapters contained within, ie November has Metamorphosis and Slumber. Each mini chapter within each month had a specific nourishment, to the season in question.

Reading the bulk of this book in February felt like such a gift, whilst in bed before sleep. We talk a lot about refilling our wells, our cups, especially for mothers after 2020. But this book helps with that. Taking time for one's self, practicing nourishing routines and actually resting, all highlighted in relatable detail.

This quote hit like a gut punch. As someone who has struggled with anxiety since I was pre-teen, I would always wish away an anxiety flare up, so I could go back to being 'normal'. This helped ease that pain.

        "It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It         is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the             best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife."

This is a deeply felt, but easily accessible book. One for each person in your life to help, just a bit, ease the pain of last year and give them the strength to march forward.

Image credit: Penguin Random House)