24. The Wintering

Katherine May. 2020.

Coming at the time that I was being vaccinated and re-emerging into the world, this book about the author's chronic illness and depression that caused her to leave her career and take stock of her life while not doing all of the things that she was used to doing resonated on many levels.  She weaves stories and facts about winters throughout the story, playing on the metaphor of her illness being a time to hunker down and survive.  I found the narration about her own life to be exhausting, depressing, and uninspiring.  Exactly the opposite of what I was looking for and needing after the exhaustion of my own forced isolation and winter.  But, many of the pieces in here that she writes about wintering were inspiring and lovely.  Her prose is wonderful.  Things like hibernation, trees shutting down for the winter, and most especially the cultural practices of the northern most communities to prepare for and survive the winter were interesting and definitely left an impression on me and felt pertinent to the pandemic situation for sure.  Overall, though, the book was written by someone in a depression, in many ways justifying checking out of life and isolating themselves from connections in a way that I can't relate to and found, well, too sad.  I didn't find a story of resilience, rejuvenation, or hope, as described on the book jacket description.  Not recommended.

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