When the cold knows your name

Winter, the season when cold comes, fog walking through streets quietly, the world is still, people finding warmth everywhere. Winter has some strange power, a power that slows down the world, strips everything bare and leaves you all alone just for yourself. No matter how late it comes it always leaves, taking away the cloth of lies and letting us see the truth, the bitter truth.

In one episode of Gilmore Girls, when Lorelie stands in between Stars Hollow as snow begins to fall she whispers “I smell snow”. For Lorelie, winter is not just weather, it is the new beginning and a feeling of possibility. This moment captured what winter can mean when you let it introduce itself, it shows that the notion of stillness can be beautiful too and that the cold can also contain wonders in it.

But for most of us, winter doesn't feel the same, because when the world slows and truth starts to come up, there is nowhere left to run. Nature is very well versed to the changes of cold, when rivers freeze, trees shed leaves, and animals retreat for survival, but humans try to fill up the spaces with noise, working, scrolling, exercising, writing, singing, dancing. But winter has way more power, it doesn’t let you hide behind all these - it eventually shows you the real reflection of yourself.

Remember when your life goes quiet, all alone, when you lost your friend, or your love of life, or a person who's just close to your heart - that is your own personal winter. Cold does not just come through the season, it can also come from loss, doubts, the feeling when you are hoping and waiting for a person to come back like crazy but deep down you know they will never even think of you now, and then you just think ‘Nothing is left, everything I was familiar to has faded.’

But that’s when winter comes and introduces itself. Winter teaches you patience and its way of teaching is something no human could do, it is not too loud, it is calm and gentle. It teaches you every time that growth is not always progress, sometimes it’s getting over something, sometimes it is listening to your own thoughts, sometimes it is just sitting and remembering your toxic traits and fixing them. It teaches that stillness is not boring or emptiness, it's just rest, it is renewal in the form of quietness.

When the cold knows your name, you cannot pretend that everything is fine anymore. Now you have to face what's inside all the storms. It tells you that warmth and joy can’t be faked the way you do sometimes in the warm and sunny seasons, they are what come from inside. When you get alone and life gets quiet, surroundings are cold, though filled with fog and mist, it feels empty, this is the time when life wants you to stop running, to stop filling up everything silent, stop searching for people who will heal you.

And then things start to change again. The fog running out of your mouth stops slowly, the sun has rested a lot and now starts staying up more, the cold breeze starts to warm up slowly everyday, because of course change desires time, it is slow but worth it. The signs of change are not loud but calm, sometimes not visible but they are present, sometimes they take time, but when they come they bring you the warmth, the warmth that you were finding in someone else, but all that time it was in you, just not known and not seen.

When the cold remembers your name every time, it is not trying to weaken you or break you, rather it is trying to show you who you actually are, it is telling you that the epistemology of loss is natural, and not all the time you have to find someone to comfort you, not every time you have to speak up just to fill up the silence. It teaches you how to stay still and look up into you, so that before you feel like everything has faded, you know that you are there for yourself and every time you open your eyes the next morning you know that it’s a new beginning.

Don’t escape when the world feels harsh and distant, know that the cold is calling out your name and it’s time to change now, not to change the surroundings but to change yourself, from inside, to be ready to know all your truths, to be ready for the season of new beginning.

Written by Saiyam Thakur
Writer

Saiyam is a 10th grader from India wanting to study commerce further and yearns for a career in journalism. She loves to take part in writing competitions, MUNs and literature related activities.

In her free time she studies, reads, designs on Canva, and watches something romantic or funny to chill out.