by Fraser Hibbitt for the Carl Kruse Blog
The worst of Winter is January. There are more people running, less people drinking, and it seems desperate. A runner is hopping on the spot, waiting for the traffic light to go red; now, they are off again huffing the steam of a new year. It is already dark; the light emanates from a pub window and what a haven – peering in there are a few figures seated at a distance from each other. Good news for the bartenders, but nowhere you’d want to add to the sparsity. Besides, the early night came on before the day began and to drink in that purgatory is an unnecessary melancholic protraction. Why bother? Just put your head down and slink along the windy street with the incessant head beams invading the senses – drink at home.
This is why there is so much plotting going on in January. They call it a New Year’s Resolution but it really is another one of those ploys to get the upper-hand on something: nature, bettering yourself etc., plot away January, work it away, don’t fix your attention too much on it. And why would anyone? Winter is dull, winter is all that is anathema to spirited exuberance. The only way to expiate dullness is with a plan of action. Again, that is why January can be very dull to the observer because it is brimming with this veneer. Although, it doesn’t take all that much effort to find the real interest: the clash between hope and doggedness.
It is disconcerting to see the first buds appear on the trees, even the would-be daffodils and bluebells in January. No, they have not slept long enough and we haven’t earned their sight. Who doesn’t know the joy of discovering a snowdrop, the first inklings of the bluebell when out on a forest walk. The chain reaction it sets forth; you then inspect the first tree to eye, and smiling see the buds beginning the long morning yawn, their inevitable unfurling to leaf. Your hands and face all of a sudden remember they are not constantly smacked by the frigid winds of winter and life is erupting, however slight. But no, a bluebell at the end of January; this is a mistake, a freakish illusion, and a joke. It comes up to find itself a stranger alone without currency without home and withers back into itself.
But where are the hymns of Winter? Winter is an introverted beauty, away from city rhythms. I grew up where Winter could be harsh but where it was astounding to see snow covered mountains, snow tattooed pine trees and sunsets blindingly red that stilled the whole land into a crouched silence. A murder of hooded crows gathers on a winter-rent skeletal tree and croak out as the sun dies. And then the stars frozen overhead. Yes, every knows Winter belongs to the Northern climate, in this unapproachable stillness it seems to be embodied. When you gaze over the mountain range and the wandering coniferous forest matted by snow and feel that strange allure of death and loss among the desolation; to be there, to be gone one knows not where without hope of return sends the life up the spine.
But don’t we premature bluebell-like, feel something like this as the New Year is sworn in? During the first days of January, I saw snow come down thick and fast, falling sideways. I had lost my coat on the 31st and my housekeys, too. Some drunk picked it up and discarded it elsewhere and I had to trudge out into the New Year with nothing but a shirt. Luckily, I had a good friend to stay with otherwise I am not sure what I would’ve done; hold up in some lonely hotel in the same clothes for days on end. I couldn’t search the lost and found as the place didn’t open until the weekend. After three days of making calls and e-mails toward opening the front door, the door that held my things, my passport and all, I managed to get a man with all the keys. This was the evening before my early morning flight. After that all turned safe and sound, we returned to the bar where the coat had been lost. And look, there my coat was with the key in the inside pocket. No use now. It seemed there was a joke hanging around, but I couldn’t place it. The New Year had started and it was time to be gone. The first four days had been empty, snowed-in, and without possessions. Lovely. I slept long and when I returned to London, felt despondent – there is much going on and little to go on. But on a day, the sunlight breaks through and mountain stillness even finds a way into the belly of the city. The trees lining the street stand stark, inwardly brooding, inwardly believing in Spring.
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Other articles by Fraser include: On My Failure To Write Anything About the Music I Hear
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