Living for Winter Light

I am ten weeks postpartum tomorrow. Two and a half months of my sweet little one!

I can’t tell if it is very smart or very stupid to pair up newborn lockdown with winter quad-demic lockdown and also the coldest, snowiest winter in recent memory.

Even this statue in Haddonfield NJ needed to bundle up!

I had to wrestle, once again, with the fact that my body has limitations. I had to HEAL from giving birth, and trust that resting in the short-term could restore me to place where I could be more active long-term. There is faith in the process of recovery.

Some days I only went outside to bring veggie scraps to the compost heap.

The first thing that made me feel like I was returning to myself was the desire, and capacity, to read.

Both Baby and I sunbathe every day. Light Therapy is REAL!

We observed some of the wintry milestones, like Lunar New Year. Happy Year of the Snake!

And the Super Bowl:

Next up: Easter

We got a week of “False Spring” at the end of February, and I challenged myself to take bebé on a different local walk every day:

Reintroducing coffee into my life has been AMAZING.

And overall, the comfort of hot drinks has been welcome.

Keeping my South Jersey cred: First beer post-babe was at Pour House:

How Do I Make It to Spring Every Year?

I’ve been so curious about how I used to pass late winter — the light change makes me impatient for real spring, but it just isn’t time quite yet. I ordered heirloom seeds for my garden beds this week, and that keeps me hopeful.

I remembered reading The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald and walking my hometown, trying to see it differently. Sebald’s style absolutely influenced how I placed photos in all my blogging since.

I have much of my last blog back in Draft mode, but I do revisit to see what I got up to a decade ago. I love past me, walking parks and taking photos on film:

I think I take a picture of my first crocus sighting every year. Because I reliably forget that anything will ever bloom again, after the cold darkness of each winter.

Reading (and Enjoying) a Physical Newspaper

The best gift I gave myself for the postpartum era is a subscription to the Philly Inquirer, both print and online. During the coldest months with a newborn it helped me feel like I had traveled—to the Jersey Shore, to art museums and university lectures, to excellent restaurants. It’s consistently trustworthy on the news and the features are INCREDIBLE, just great writing, interesting topics, and I am so grateful for the way the paper stokes my curiosity about the region where I live. Bookstore and antique shop recommendations! Profiles of local Olympians! Nonprofit spotlights!! A two-page spread by a cartoonist detailing fun things they overheard at Reading Terminal Market! Y’all, my local city paper is CHARMING and if you still have one please subscribe.

This week I delighted in the guide to seeing and identifying cherry blossoms in different neighborhoods of the city.

Spring really is coming. That is my mantra for now. It really, truly is about to pop.