Als’s Reviews > Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times > Status Update

Here I am logging all the parts that resonate with my soul and it’s taking a minute to do. I just caught a collection of thoughts running through my brain urging me to read faster and hurry up so I can make progress on this book. But wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of this book? It’s telling me to rest and retreat, to take my time. And so, I will.

-I feel as though I’m cooking autumn into my house.
-I’m inviting them back in: still, rhythmic work with the hands, the kind of light concentration that allows you to dream. … I make gingerbread men … & find myself taking excessive care over them, as if they are reverse voodoo dolls. I imagine each one of them as a small act of defiance against the life I’ve been living.

“What can you do when you’re already doing everything? … The problem with ‘everything’ is that it ends up looking an awful lot like nothing: just one long haze of frantic activity, with all the meaning sheared away.”

I picked this book today because sometimes self care is about wants, but today it’s about needs.

“in winter, we witness the full glory of nature’s flourishing in lean times. Nature doesnt…attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in summer. They prepare [&] adapt…winter can be a glorious season…for reflection & recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.”