Winter Collection
WINTER
A Revelatory Season
My newest Collection, “Winter”, isn’t so much about the season as it is about the Winter seasons in life.
Winter seasons are periods in life marked by change that force us to slow, to stop, and to fortify ourselves.
Spring is when nature comes to life and the first seeds of the year are planted.
Summer is marked by the peak of sunlight when the days grow long, and so, too, does the length of labor.
Fall is a period of celebration and harvest where thanks are given for the fruits of summer’s labor.
Winter, though, brings a period of dormancy. The shortening of days ushers in longer periods of darkness. Everything retracts within. All that is excess is shed in order to conserve.
But the dormancy of winter is not passive. Deep beneath the frozen layers of earth is a pulse of heat and transformation. Winter is a call to build resilience and endurance by actively resting.
Winter is restorative.
There is an external pressure to ignore winter seasons for the sake of productivity (what pandemic?), but winter isn’t a season to ignore. Winter is a signal to stop.
Winter has a way of making visible what wasn’t before. In winter, all the vibrant, green leaves from these trees are gone revealing the tangles of branches.
My own winter period became evident to me in the spring of 2019, though, my therapist noticed it much sooner. My daughter was just over a year old and the same things that used to bring me joy no longer did. There were other signs of course, but the symptoms of my depression were still new to me and were not easily recognized. Then came 2020 and everything worsened.
What I have since come to understand is that there is still so little known about postpartum depression and the changes a mother goes through postpartum. I was privileged enough to be able to speak with a specialist that was able to walk me through the hormonal changes my body was going through, which were a lot considering I had just weaned my three year old off of breastfeeding. In three months time, I felt like a completely different person.
My Winter collection came in that in-between period - the period after I had stopped breastfeeding, but before I was feeling like my old self again, when I was riding the waves of huge hormonal changes and not knowing who I was going to be on the other side. This collection was a purging of all the angst at feeling stuck, the shame of struggling so much, the doubting of myself and my sanity, and the feelings of being lost in a thick fog.
What I didn't see at the time, but am recognizing now, is that this collection is the detailing of my re-emergence into my life. It is the thawing of my own winter.