The Fresh Starts Issue

I love the intense, orange-flavored sunsets of winter, but not the shorter days and cold mornings. Driving home from work in the dark, I start to crave tacos and chili, cornbread and collard greens, apple pie with ice cream, beef stew or anything cooked in a crock-pot, which I don’t even own. I vow once again to start sitting in front of a light box every morning, and I get in my pajamas earlier and earlier every night. But what I really crave with the onset of gray winte­r days (and the bleak prospect of a recession) is the comfort of a tribe. I want to retreat to a cave and build a fire to keep saber-toothed tigers at bay while my tribe cooks something on a spit and fat drips and sizzles in the flames. Afterward, we might draw pictures on the cave wall or wrap up in bear skins and smoke a peace pipe of wacky tobaccy while someone plays a flute or tells a story. I want to go to sleep comforted by my family and friends gathered around me for safety in numbers, especially now that the numbers that tempted us with the promise of security––a rising Dow, low interest rates, high returns, annual raises––are meaningless. I’d love to withdraw from the world right now and hibernate through dark days and hard times, but I’m trying to change the way I react instead. I’ve dabbled at meditation more than once, and I always gave it up after a few times because I’m a deadly combination of lazy and restless. But when I tried it again recently, something seemed to click into place. I don’t expect instant enlightenment and sometimes I don’t even completely understand the point of it, but for 30 minutes at a time, I’m able to sit still and wait for the light to return. It’s a start.