~ The Winter of Belonging to Yourself ~

(St. Petersburg, Russia, image found here)

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."  ~Ruth Stout

I do love this quote.  For me these words hit the nail square on the head.  "There is a privacy," this is how I feel about rainy days, and could never quite pull out the words to capture how rain affects me.  There is indeed privacy, in a season of rain.

Winter seems the same.   It is a season of privacy unto ourselves, as Ruth Stout shares with us, "...you can have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."  Such a delicious idea, having permission to belong to yourself.

To be sure, those who spend days on end confined to hearth and home, there is the time when this savoring begins to rub the wrong way, and the desire to banish all snow and ice and frigid air is overwhelming.  If would be well at times if winter were a heavy curtain of whitest velvet to be flung wide with a grand revelation of spring.   Ahhhh.....the only prescription for this is fancying yourself a daydream believer, and mentally abscond from the icy chains of winter.

Quotes, poems, stories, novels, history, science, art, music and relationships, and conversations, are all communication by words or musical notation, isn't it delightful.  I wrap myself in words, I tote words around with me continuously, I passionately devour the written word, I remember and study words, and on particular occasion I write words.

Words have a vast array of power to bring forth: smiles; laughter; or tears.  We may learn and be changed by the words we read and take as our own.   Imagine, reading this quote settled a question for me about the long affects of rain.  There was another such thought, but I have temporarily forgotten it.  Anyway, these words also give a hint of how to deal with at least a portion of the winter doldrums.

Now of a rainy day I shall think of this and savor a time of belonging to myself.

Blessings and wishing you a fine day.