A Little Death

“Love does not move us to laughter at the deepest point in its journey, the pinnacle of its flight: at its deepest and highest, it wrenches from us cries and moans, expressions of pain, however jubilant, which when you think about it is not strange at all because birth is a painful joy. A little death is what the French call the climax of the embrace, which joins us as it breaks us apart and finds us as it loses us, is our beginning as it is our end. A little death they call it, but it must be great, tremendous, to give birth to us as it kills us.”

- Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces

Winter has come upon us once more and in one single night an entire year will die, only to be remembered in our disappointments and our resolutions to do better than an entire year’s worth of struggle. Winter will be the death of us all, the seasonal chance to recede into our psychological caves and hibernate our hopes until spring beckons us to be ourselves again. What strange patterns we fall back onto once the days are stripped of their sun. What strange thoughts we turn to when the nights are darkest and our beds the coldest. One day, we will strain to remember the smell of warm rain and green growth. Instead, we’ll be left with the clear headed scent of snow and the irrational desire to scream obscenities at the cold as it bites you at every opportunity. Winter – nature’s homespun slap in the face to those who forgot its bitter smile in the past.